23662 - Senior Policy Advisor for Recall Policy (up to 2 roles available) in Leeds

This vacancy is only available to existing Civil Servant employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). Please review the "Eligibility" section before you apply.

Salary

The national salary range is £42,914 - £46,182. London salary range is £49,325- £53,081. Your salary will be dependent on your base location.

Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.

Job description

Senior Policy Advisor for Recall Policy (up to 2 roles available)

Youth Justice and Offender Policy

The Youth Justice and Offender Policy Directorate is recruiting permanently for two Senior Policy Advisors for Recall Policy. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.

Candidates are reminded that to be eligible for this campaign; you must still be employed as a civil servant at the point of accepting the role. If you resign or your FTA contract ends before you are made and accept an offer, you will become ineligible and you will be withdrawn from the process.

Location

Successful candidates will have the option to be based at one of the following locations:

• 102 Petty France, London
• 5 Wellington Place, Leeds

Occasional travel between the two locations may be required. We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your base location (102 Petty France or 5 Wellington Place Leeds).

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

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 Work of the Prison Demand and Release Unit

The Prison Demand and Release (PDR) Policy Team, which is situated in the Youth Justice and Offender Policy (YJOP) Directorate, plays a crucial role in addressing the prison capacity challenge. We work closely with HMPPS, other policy teams including the Female Offenders and Probation, in addition to legal and analytical teams, to give ministers robust advice.

This team’s remit includes considering steps that could be taken to address the growing prison recall population. In the past year, this work has included delivering landmark reforms to recall via secondary and primary legislation. The growing recall population continues to be a key part of the prison capacity challenge and our work to address this challenge is ongoing. It is an area which has high ministerial and stakeholder attention.

Within this context, we are looking for a motivated policy professional to join a welcoming and supportive team. The role is fast paced, but with the opportunity for detailed policy work, intellectually challenging and exciting, and will give the successful candidate the chance to work on an area which will make a real difference to how offenders are dealt with by the criminal justice system for years to come.

Senior Policy Advisor for Recall Policy – the role

We are looking for a motivated policy professional to join a welcoming and supportive team to help address the challenge of the growing recall population. The role is fast paced, intellectually challenging and exciting, and will give the successful candidate the opportunity to work on an area which will make a real difference to how offenders are dealt with by the criminal justice system for years to come.

This is a busy team that receives a lot of interest from senior officials and ministers and is a fantastic opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the prison capacity challenge.

The job holder will be required to work flexibly to respond to ministerial priorities. Although the focus of the role will evolve, you will initially work to provide critical policy support to help monitor the impacts of our recall reforms within the Sentencing Act, as well as undertaking work to identify and develop non‑legislative policy options for further reforms to the recall process. This will involve significant collaboration with policy teams across the MoJ, operational partners in HMPPS and external stakeholders as well as providing clear advice to Ministers.

Key responsibilities

• Policy development: Developing innovative approaches to complex policy challenges. You will draw on different sources of evidence and data to inform your work and demonstrate effective problem‑solving approaches.
• Advice, briefing and correspondence: Ensuring Ministers, senior leaders, Parliamentarians and stakeholders are given clear, well‑researched and timely advice on live issues and areas of concern. This work is likely to include oral and written briefings, parliamentary questions and correspondence and feeding a prison demand and release perspective into wider work across MoJ and other government departments.
• Project oversight – Scoping, planning and managing your work through project management techniques: managing risks, issues and dependencies and monitoring and progress. This can include reviews and research‑led projects.
• Stakeholder relations: Maintaining and owning close relationships with a wide range of key stakeholders within the MoJ/HMPPS, across government and within the third sector.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Strong ability to work collaboratively across teams and confidently represent government with external stakeholders and engage with a wide range of views.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and adjust to changing demands, prioritising work accordingly.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to tailor written work to different audiences and explain complex or technical issues clearly to non‑specialists.
• Strong influencing skills, including the confidence to provide appropriate challenge constructively and effectively.
• Creative problem‑solving skills and confident using AI and other tools to develop innovative solutions to challenges.
• Ability to work closely with operational colleagues, analysts and lawyers to understand the data, the legal framework and unpick tricky policy issues and develop solutions at pace.
• You can demonstrate that you can quickly understand complex information from a range of sources and can identify how it fits into the wider picture.

Desirable:

• Experience of working on criminal justice.
• Experience working with data.

Additional Information

• 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.
• 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.

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non‑contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

For nationally advertised roles: All successful candidates will be appointed to the nearest viable office nearest to their home postcode and on its respective pay scale. This will be at either a HQ building (subject to desk allocation, a Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or a Justice Satellite Office (JSO) – See Map . All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

For current MoJ employees, your base location will need to be changed to the nearest viable office (to your home postcode), either at a HQ building, JCC or JSO within the National Office Network and moved its location’s respective pay scale (any legacy arrangements/locations will need to be amended).

Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on ’modernised’ terms in their current post or onto ’unmodernised’ MoJ terms if they are on ’unmodernised’ terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.

MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain their grade on lateral transfer.

All candidates who are currently in receipt of Mark Time / Pay Protection should ensure they are familiar with the new policy on permanent and temporary promotion which can be found on the employee intranet.

Flexible working hours

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. MoJ welcomes part‑time, flexible and job‑sharing working

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