We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.
Head of Director’s Office and Business Management Unit
Grade 7
Prison Policy Directorate
The Prison Policy directorate is recruiting permanently for a Grade 7 to design and lead its newly-formed Director’s Office and Business Management Unit.
This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion. If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.
Location:
Successful candidates will have the option to be based at one of the following HQ locations:
- 102 Petty France, London
- 5 Wellington Place, Leeds (occasional travel between Leeds and London may be required post Covid-19)
Our staff, who have an HQ building as their base location, are expected to work in an office at least 3 days per week.
Ways of Working
At the MoJ we believe and promote alternative ways of working, these roles are available as:
- Full-time, part-time or the option to job share
- Flexible working patterns
- Flexible working arrangements between base locations, MoJ Hubs and home.
If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.
We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
MOJ is one of the largest government departments, employing over 77,000 people (including those in HM Prison and Probation Service), with a budget of approximately £9 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at 500 courts and tribunals, and 133 prisons in England and Wales.
Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice
The Work of the Prison Policy directorate
The Prison Policy directorate leads MoJ’s work to ensure our prisons protect the public by holding prisoners safely and securely as they serve their sentences handed down by the courts and tackle the underlying causes of offending by promoting rehabilitation and reform. We work in an important area of social policy and make a meaningful difference to the lives of prisoners and the public.
Head of Business Management Unit - the role
We are looking for an enthusiastic, self-starting Grade 7 to lead the directorate’s important business management function.
This is a unique opportunity to work closely with the Prison Policy Senior Management Team (SMT) and to lead a team of four members of staff to deliver high quality support to a busy directorate.
You will show strong leadership and work collaboratively with senior managers and staff to ensure the smooth running of the Directorate and to provide strategic support to the Director.
As a newly formed team, you will have some scope to design new processes and policies, ensuring the team is set up in the best possible way to meet its objectives.
Main responsibilities:
Key responsibilities of the role include:
- Providing strategic support to the Prison Policy Director and wider SMT, including:
- acting as a Private Secretary to the Director, ensuring she receives an accurate and informative day pack and working closely with the relevant PA to manage her inbox, identifying urgent items for clearance.
- providing the Director with support across the full range of policy areas in the directorate - understanding and triaging the issues; helping her to prioritise areas of focus; and representing her views when required.
- attending the weekly Prison Policy SMT, supporting the leadership team to identify the strategic issues which matter and communicating these clearly and concisely to help inform decision-making.
- Ensuring the smooth running of the directorate through effective design and management of the BMU, including:
- taking overall responsibility for the delivery of business and administrative support within the directorate, which includes managing a team of diary managers.
- taking overall responsibility for managing the directorate’s finance and resources, working closely with the Director and senior management team in ensuring that we have the money and people we need to deliver our work.
- effectively leading your team to have day-to-day oversight of our staff and programme budget and working closely with finance and teams leads to improve the quality of financial reporting to senior management. This will include ensuring accurate and timely forecasting and the management of underspend.
- ensuring all central commissions relating to the corporate business of the directorate are responded to effectively.
- ensuring all record keeping and surrounding processes are effective and maintained, allowing smooth responses to commissions as they arise.
- Providing support and leadership, including:
- directly line managing a team of four PAs and administrative/business support staff.
- providing leadership and a sense of purpose to the whole team, without whom the day-to-day functioning of the directorate would not be possible.
- encouraging collaborative working across the team and with the wider directorate.
- supporting the Director’s Office to use its unique central position to identify scope for improving processes and ways of working.
- Leading on cross-cutting, corporate projects for the directorate, for example:
- supporting the SMT to take forward programmes of work on particular areas of corporate activity such as staff engagement and the People Survey.
Skills and Experience
The individual will:
- have strong leadership skills, particularly the ability to drive progress to get things done, build resilience in yourself and others and ensure high performance in a time of change.
- have impeccable organisational skills capable of managing and delivering a high volume of work at pace whilst ensuring quality.
- have the ability to develop and nurture effective relationships with colleagues and with wider stakeholders to ensure effective collaboration to get business done.
- have excellent judgement, combined with the ingenuity and independent ability to spot and manage risk and bring solutions to problems to Prison Policy SMT.
- be able to quickly understand and prioritise often complex policy issues.
- be engaging, trustworthy and unafraid to challenge peers and senior colleagues to ensure the best outcome for the directorate.
Experience of working in a Private Office, in finance and/or experience of project/programme management would be an advantage, but not essential.
Application process
You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.
Experience
You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process in order to assess any demonstrable experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to the role.
You will also be asked to upload a Statement of Suitability of no more than 250 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.
Behaviours
When applying you will be asked to provide an example of the ‘Seeing the big picture’ Behaviour (see Annex A for more information):
Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/717275/CS_Behaviours_2018.pdf
Candidates invited to Interview
Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.
During the interview, we will be assessing you on Behaviours and Strengths from the success Profiles framework.
We will be testing you on the following Behaviours:
- Seeing the big picture
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
- Managing a quality service
Candidates who pass stage 1 interview will be invited to stage 2 interview which will be conducted by the Director, Prison Policy.
You can refer to the CS Strengths dictionary for more details: Success Profiles - Civil Service Strengths Dictionary (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Interviews are expected to take place in early to mid-October 2022.
Candidates applying from HMPPS should note that the Ministry of Justice does not have the same conditions of employment as HMPPS. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful.
The MoJ is proud to be Level 3 Disability Confident. Disability Confident is the approach through which we offer guaranteed interviews for all people with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the advertised role as set out in the job description.
Contact information
Please do get in touch if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team: ben.charnock1@justice.gov.uk
Annex A - The STAR method
Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.
Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.
- Where are you?
- Who was there with you?
- What had happened?
Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.
- What was the task that you had to complete and why?
- What did you have to achieve?
Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I” rather than “we” to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.
Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.
- What results did the actions produce?
- What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?
- Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?
Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.
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