Overview 

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) vulnerable offenders team is recruiting at least 1 Band C / HEO policy officer, with an expected focus on tackling racial disparity in the criminal justice system (CJS).

The vulnerable offenders team leads on cross-cutting policy to support the needs of the vulnerable across the criminal justice system, including policy on female offenders, tackling racial disparity in the CJS, and offender health. These are high-profile and fast-paced policy areas with a great deal of public, Parliamentary and Ministerial interest.

The successful candidate should be open to work flexibly across the wider team where required, in response to Ministerial priorities. However, we expect the role to focus initially on work around racial and ethnic disparity in the criminal justice system.

David Lammy MP carried out an independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System, published in 2017 (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lammy-review-final-report).

Ministry of Justice and partners have developed a comprehensive programme of work both responding to David Lammy’s recommendations and taking forward wider initiatives around racial disparity (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-racial-disparity-in-the-criminal-justice-system-2020)

The vulnerable offenders team are responsible for oversight of policy work to tackle racial disparity, and to support wider teams across MOJ and our partners to consider race in future policy development. We support the governance overseeing work on race disparity, stakeholder engagement, priority projects on race and support directly into other policy teams.

We expect the successful candidate to be involved across this work, and are seeking an individual with strong policy and analytical skills, who is confident to collaborate with a diverse range of partners within and beyond the public sector.

The role is likely to include consultancy work to support wider policy teams to better understand race impacts of their work in addition to responsibilities for briefing, stakeholder engagement, and coordination with a likely focus on data around racial and ethnic disparity.

This post offers an excellent opportunity for a high performing policy professional to work at the centre of an important and interesting area of work for the department. This is a high-profile and fast-paced policy area with public, Parliamentary and Ministerial interest. The successful candidate will be able to command the confidence of Ministers, colleagues and stakeholders in these areas, developing expertise and judgment to deal with novel issues.

Although this recruitment is initially focused on a particular role in the vulnerable offenders team, any additional candidates above the required standard will be placed on a merit list for consideration for other policy roles requiring the same candidate profile.

Job Description

Duties may include:

• Working embedded temporarily into other policy teams in Ministry of Justice to provide consultancy support around understanding and managing impacts of policy on racial and ethnic minorities – including understanding of data, support engaging stakeholders and considering how policy is handed over to operations
• Coordinating data and analytical work relating to race disparity – providing support to specialists analysts in working with policy makers and operational staff to maintain specialist analysts maintaining oversight of data needs,
• Owning one or more specialist focus areas for the race team – for example work about Gypsy, Roma Traveller individuals in the Criminal Justice System and/or work to improve ethnic minority trust in the Criminal Justice System
• Leading skill-sharing work to build the competency of policy professionals across the department around consideration of race disparity
• Leading and supporting on submission to Ministers, Parliamentary Questions, briefings, correspondence and similar pieces of work
• Supporting effective governance – preparing board papers, taking notes and following up actions
• Maintaining strong relationships with senior leaders and external stakeholders to share progress, present ideas, make connections and gather feedback to support the effective implementation of policy
• Contributing to project management, progress tracking and update publications around existing commitments.
• Input to short term problem-solving on urgent issues.
• In this busy team, you will be expected to sometimes stretch yourself beyond your grade, including taking an independent lead on some policy/delivery areas and overseeing pieces of work in their entirety from start to finish.

In addition to meeting the required strengths and behaviours it is expected that successful applicants will have:

• Excellent written skills and numerical skills, with experience in using data to inform your work.
• Ability to make sound judgments and provide well-articulated advice
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• The confidence and skills to act independently
• Excellent IT skills
  

Further to this it would be desirable, but not essential, for the post holder to:

• Have experience working in policy making or policy analysis
• Have an understanding of equalities issues
• Have an understanding of the justice system
• Have an understanding of the governmental and parliamentary processes
• Be qualified to graduate level or have related work experience
  

Behaviours

You will be required to provide evidence of the following key Behaviours at Level 3.

• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Communicating and influencing
• Delivering at Pace

Further information about each behaviour can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles

In the event of receiving a high number of applications we will sift initially on the Making Effective Decisions competency. Applicants who are successful at the sift stage will be invited to interview where they may also be required to complete a written exercise.

If you would like to find out more about the roles, please contact Safiya Buhari at safiya.buhari1@justice.gov.uk or Olu Adedokun at olu.adedokun@justice.gov.uk

Roles are available to applicants already at the substantive grade and on promotion.

Please be aware, if successful and you are not currently a Civil Servant, the Ministry of Justice does not negotiate pay, you are expected to start at the minimum pay scale.