Job description
Sentencing and Parole Policy – Team Leader (up to 2 posts)
Grade 7
Youth Justice and Parole Policy
The Youth Justice and Offender Policy Directorate is recruiting permanently for two Grade 7 roles across the Sentencing and Parole Policy Unit. This campaign is open to all staff within the Ministry of Justice and is available on level transfer and substantive promotion.
Candidates are reminded that to be eligible for this campaign; you must still be employed by the Ministry of Justice 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resign or your FTA contract ends before you are made and accept an offer, you will become ineligible and you will be withdrawn from the process.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
Salary
Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
MoJ is the largest government department, employing over 90,000 people with a budget of approximately £10 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
Sentencing and Parole Policy Unit
The Sentencing and Parole Policy Unit is at the very heart of MoJ’s work to deliver the government’s priorities on how the criminal justice system deals with offenders. The team covers a range of issues - leading on custodial sentencing, non-custodial sentencing, policy sponsorship of the Sentencing Council, and dangerous offenders, each of which deal with a varied portfolio of work with high ministerial interest.
In addition to sentencing, the unit also holds policy responsibility for the parole process, which is administered by the Parole Board. This dual responsibility gives us a unique and influential role in shaping how offenders are sentenced, managed, and released.
We are looking for motivated and experienced candidates to join a welcoming and supportive team. The roles are fast paced, intellectually challenging, politically high profile and exciting and give candidates the opportunity to work on areas which will make a real difference to how offenders are dealt with by the criminal justice system for years to come.
The roles
As set out above, the Unit leads on a number of high-profile and fast-moving policy areas, so the postholder may need to be flexible and work across different portfolios according to business need. However, we anticipate that roles will primarily focus on two core work areas:
Role 1 - Custodial Sentencing
- Leading across a high-profile and politically sensitive portfolio covering minimum and maximum sentences, aggravating factors and cohort-specific approaches to sentencing
- Developing options to ensure sentencing policy appropriately balances public protection, punishment, rehabilitation and prison capacity considerations.
- Working closely with legal advisers, analysts, operational colleagues and other policy teams to understand how the sentencing framework is operating in practice and identify opportunities for improvement.
- Building effective relationships across government and with external stakeholders, including the Attorney General's Office, No.10 and criminal justice partners.
- Managing a busy portfolio of business-as-usual work, including PQs, correspondence, briefing, submissions and ad hoc ministerial commissions.
Role 2 - Parole system
- Leading the development and delivery of cross-system work to ensure an effective, efficient and high-performing parole system, which is responsible for assessing whether some of the most serious offenders in the system would be safe to release.
- Supporting the Parole System Oversight Group (PSOG) which provides senior level governance for this work. Working closely with the MoJ Non-Executive Director who chairs the Group, to oversee a programme of measures to deliver system improvements and meet agreed objectives.
- Building relationships with colleagues across the system, including the Parole Board, HMPPS, Probation Service, analysts and others to be the focal point of a collaborative and co-ordinated approach to tackling problems and delays in the system.
- Owning and driving forward the programme of work, and reporting progress to senior officials and Ministers.
Skills and Experience
The ideal candidate would have the following key skills and experience:
Essential:
- Experienced leader able to confidently and proactively shape the strategic direction of the work.
- Excellent policy development skills.
- Politically astute, with a proven track record of influencing and managing stakeholders at all levels, with high credibility and effectiveness.
- Exceptional written and oral briefing skills.
- Proven ability to build trust with senior officials and ministers.
- Ability to plan and deliver work to tight deadlines, being flexible and responsive to changing pressures and priorities.
- Experience of advising Ministers or other senior leaders on complex policy issues in a fast-paced environment
- Line management experience, ideally in a policy context.
Desirable:
- Experience of working on primary legislation.
- An understanding of sentencing and/or the criminal justice system.
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.
Application process
You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.
You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, including your CV, statement of suitability and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
Experience
You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process 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 750 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.
Candidates invited to Interview
Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.
At interview you will be assessed against behaviours where you will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated them. In addition, you will also be asked strength-based questions.
Behaviours:
The following Behaviours will be tested at interview:
- Leadership
- Delivering at Pace
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model to explain:
- WHO - What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve?Or
- STAR - What was the Situation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions?
Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:
Success Profiles: Civil Service behaviours - GOV.UK
Strengths:
It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this. Further information on Civil Service Strengths can be found via this link Success Profiles: Strengths - GOV.UK
Interviews are expected to take place late October or early November 2026.
Contact information
Please do get in touch with steven.toal1@justice.uk if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team.
