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
About the JAC
The Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) is an independent public body, established in April 2006, to select judges in the courts and tribunals, and non-legal tribunal members. The JAC selects judicial candidates through fair and open competition, encouraging a wide range of quality candidates to apply for the posts that it advertises.
The JAC is responsible for designing, planning and running recruitment campaigns to select judicial office holders up to and including High Court Judges. We have a statutory duty to select solely on merit, while keeping our selection processes open to the widest range of applicants. We are committed to attracting applicants from as wide a field as possible and work closely with a range of organisations to promote vacancies to eligible candidates. We launch a new campaign for judicial posts every one to two weeks. These range from high volume campaigns for ‘entry level’ posts, attracting upward of 2,000 applicants, to small campaigns for senior roles, attracting a handful of highly qualified people.
Though located at Clive House, Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ, JAC staff are currently working remotely, at home, unless there are clear business or personal reasons for attending the office. While this may continue for a few months, it will be necessary for the successful postholders to work at the JAC location regularly once colleagues return to the office.
We offer a range of benefits including an attractive annual leave allowance, flexible working and choice of pension schemes. We actively encourage all staff to undertake learning and development as part of their personal objectives.
More is on our website: http://judicialappointments.gov.uk
In the Strategy and Policy Division we have two HEO vacancies; one in the Policy Team and one in the Diversity and Engagement Team.
HEO – Policy Team
We are looking for an HEO Policy Advisor to join the Selection Policy Team of the JAC. You will be helping to ensure that the JAC fulfils its core statutory duty of selecting judges solely on merit. This is a key role in a vital public body that delivers complex and constitutionally sensitive work at pace.
The Selection Policy team works closely with the JAC’s Commissioners, operational teams, independent panel members and members of the judiciary to ensure the JAC identifies the very best candidates for judicial office. Working within this team, you will be:
- advising on current JAC selection policy and ensuring that it is implemented fairly and effectively in the delivery of selection exercises; and
- developing and improving policy and processes, supporting our key aims of increasing confidence in the quality of selections and becoming a recognised centre of excellence for appointments.
Main responsibilities of the role will include:
- Providing advice, briefing, and guidance for senior staff and operational teams on selection exercise process and policy matters;
- Delivery of new policy relating to the JAC selection process and selection tools;
- Ensuring that the JAC’s selection processes are fair and free from bias, working with equality and operational leads and Commissioners to meet the JAC’s statutory duties;
- Regularly reviewing and quality assuring the selection exercise process, liaising regularly with selection exercise teams to ensure best practice is understood and followed;
- Maintaining ownership of key delivery materials, templates and guidance relating to selection policy;
- Oversight and administration of data sharing agreements relating to probity checks with the police, HMRC and professional bodies;
- Providing support to the Head of Selection Policy and wider team as required.
HEO – Diversity and Engagement Team
We’re looking for a Diversity and Stakeholder Engagement Manager (HEO) to join the Diversity and Engagement (D&E) team. This is a varied and exciting role which supports the Commission in selecting new judges of the highest quality from the widest range of backgrounds. The successful candidate will work with senior members of the JAC including the Commission Board members as well as our key external partners and stakeholders. This role works with colleagues across the Diversity and Engagement Team to support the creation of a judiciary that better reflects the society it serves, by:
- supporting effective engagement with the full range of JAC stakeholders
- working directly with our partner organisations to develop a strong and diverse candidate pool
- ensuring that selection processes are fair and free from bias, and
- monitoring applications and the progress of target groups who are currently under-represented among the judiciary.
Main responsibilities of the role will include:
- Supporting the Senior Engagement and Insight Manager (SEO) in providing diversity policy advice to the organisation, including the diversity review of JAC selection materials and responding to external enquiries.
- Providing insight on target groups through analysis of data; manage ‘diversity checkpoints’ at key points during the judicial selection process; liaising with selection exercise teams, recording and drawing conclusions on the data.
- Manage the JAC input to stakeholder engagement, outreach events and support stakeholder key relationships, including within the Judicial Diversity Forum (JDF) chaired by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.
- Lead on the ongoing evaluation of the impact that remote working, as a result of the COVID19, period has had on the diversity of applicants and progression.
- Manage the external JAC newsletter; commissioning updates from selection exercise teams, collating final draft and publishing.
- Other tasks as required by the D&E team which can include assisting with internal diversity policy development and training delivery, assisting with international judicial visits, managing team returns such as the Management Information Pack (MIP) and any ad-hoc diversity work.
Selection process details
Please be aware that the below Behaviours, Strengths, Skills and Qualifications are a requirement for both roles unless otherwise stated.
You will need to demonstrate the following behaviours for these roles:
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
- Seeing the Big Picture
In addition to these behaviours, your experience will be assessed.
You should have experience in the following areas;
- Ability to engage and communicate confidently with senior staff and the ability to build constructive relationships with a variety of internal and external partners and other stakeholders.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to target communications to a range of audiences.
- Experience and understanding of working to published procedures, or operational policy, in a public sector environment (policy role only)
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge and understanding of recruitment and selection processes would be advantageous but is not essential.
- Strong IT skills, especially MS Word, MS Teams and Excel and the ability to quickly develop the skills to work with new IT solutions.
- Knowledge of equality legislation and the diversity issues affecting the judiciary and legal professions (diversity and engagement role only)
Application process
You need to provide:
- Your CV
- A statement of suitability detailing the relevant skills and experience you have (500 words max).
- Written evidence of 2 of the 4 core behaviours for this role (Changing and Improving and Communicating and Influencing).
Sift
Applications will be sifted based on the CV, statement of suitability and the two behaviours mentioned above.
Interview
Interviews will take place mid-March and will be conducted remotely via MSTeams.
At interview you will asked about all 4 behaviours, your CV and statement of suitability, and three strengths: Team Player, Relationship Builder, Problem Solver You can find out more about strengths here.
Applicants invited for interview will be expected to undertake a brief work assessment either before or on the day of the interview. More details will be provided if you are invited to interview.
If after reading this job description you require any further information about either vacancy, please contact:
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