Building a faster, fairer, and more accessible system with AI

The Justice AI Unit is an interdisciplinary team of AI specialists, designers, technologists, and operational experts working to embed responsible AI across the justice system.

We exist to enable the safe and ethical adoption of AI across the MoJ and its agencies, helping our people deliver faster, better and more human services.

We are building something different in the Justice AI Unit; a team that’s not only exploring the frontier of artificial intelligence, but doing so with care, curiosity and purpose. The work you will do here will have widespread impact at scale. You can find out more about who we are at our public facing website.

As Deputy Director, AI Enablement, you will have a crucial role in improving and changing things as part of a world class team.

You will lead AI enablement across the Ministry of Justice, with a focus on LLM adoption, driving scalable and ethically grounded transformation aligned with the AI Action Plan for Justice. This includes overseeing and delivering two priority workstreams: AI Assistants at Scale and Enablement, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and broader transformation initiatives.

I would be thrilled to welcome your application to the Justice AI Unit.

Best wishes,

Dan James

Director of the Justice AI Unit

The Ministry of Justice is a major government department at the heart of the justice system. We deliver some of the most fundamental public services including courts, tribunals, prisons, legal services, youth justice, probation services, and attendance centres.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) works to protect and advance the principles of justice. Our vision is to deliver a world-class justice system that works for everyone in society.

The justice system plays a crucial role in our success as a nation - keeping people safe, emphasising fairness, guaranteeing individual rights and giving businesses confidence to flourish.

The delivery of our three strategic outcomes are central to doing this:

Punishment that cuts crime: to rebuild confidence in the criminal justice system by protecting the public and reducing reoffending with a sustainable and effective prison and probation service.
Swifter justice for victims: to rebuild confidence in the criminal justice system by ensuring timely, just outcomes for victims and defendants through a modern and efficient criminal courts system.
A beacon for justice and the rule of law: to uphold the rule of law at home and abroad; promote our world-leading legal services, which contribute to economic growth; and deliver accessible and timely civil, family and administrative justice.

For more information on who we are and what we do, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice.

Job Title

Deputy Director, AI Enablement

Location

National

Due to the nature of the role and the Justice AI Unit, the postholder is expected to regularly attend 102 Petty France, London.

Please note the requirements for travel and level of flexibility available as set out in the FAQs section.

Salary

The salary for this role is set within the MoJ SCS PB1 range (£81,000 - £117,800)

Existing Civil Servants will be appointed in line with the Civil Service pay rules in place on the date of their appointment.

Contract Type

This role is being offered on a permanent basis.

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years - in line with the deliverables identified. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by.

Key Responsibilities

Reporting into the Director of Justice AI Unit you will:

Strategic Leadership:

Lead AI enablement across the MoJ, with a focus on cutting-edge LLM adoption, driving scalable and ethically grounded transformation aligned with the AI Action Plan for Justice.
Oversee and deliver two priority workstreams: AI Assistants at Scale and Enablement, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and broader transformation initiatives.
Own execution of the roadmap for AI enablement and AI assistants at scale, balancing immediate operational needs with long-term workforce transformation objectives.
Maintain deep expertise in cutting-edge developments in foundation models, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, and Google DeepMind, to inform strategy and ensure the MoJ remains aligned with the latest capabilities in the market.
Translate advances in large language models into actionable opportunities for the department, supporting staff, services, and policy.
Shape the future direction of AI-enabled government services, identifying long-term opportunities for transformation beyond existing plans and infrastructure.

Senior Stakeholder Engagement:

Act as a trusted advisor to the Director of AI, Director General for Service Transformation Group and senior leadership team, providing evidence-based recommendations on AI roll out, adoption and enablement strategy.
Build exceptional relationships with SCS colleagues across the MoJ to integrate AI tools into existing operational frameworks, ensuring consistency and alignment across departments.
Build and maintain strong relationships with unions, addressing concerns related to job redesign and workforce transformation with transparency and strategic foresight.
Leverage strong relationships with leading AI research labs and commercial providers to accelerate access to talent, tooling, and thought leadership. Act as an ambassador for MoJ within the UK and global AI ecosystem.

Team Leadership and Coordination:

Attract talent to a leading AI enablement team and leading a team of c.10 high performing staff, providing clear direction, coaching and performance management.
Ensure effective coordination of strategic workstreams and teams, including private sector partners, to deliver measurable outcomes.
Design, execute and champion AI enablement initiatives, ensuring that staff across the MoJ and our agencies are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to leverage AI effectively.

Operational Excellence:

Design and implement clear evaluations of AI roll out and enablement activities, such as efficiency and service quality improvements, to support strategic decision making and investment decisions
Lead the safe and ethical rollout of AI solutions to staff and service users, balancing innovation with organisational sensitivities.
Oversee resource planning, budget allocation, and risk management for AI Enablement, ensuring all initiatives are delivered on time and within scope.
Evaluate open source, commercial, and proprietary models and tools, supporting architectural and implementation decisions.

Deputising for the Director of AI:

Represent the Director in strategic forums, including cross-government AI working groups, high-level stakeholder engagements, and external conferences.
Provide leadership across all AI Action Plan for Justice workstreams in the Director’s absence, ensuring continuity and progress on key initiatives.

It is important through the recruitment process that you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the essential and desirable criteria.

Later on in the pack you will be told what is being assessed at which stage of the process.

Essential Experience:

Excellent leadership skills, with a proven ability to provide clear direction and coaching to high performing teams
Demonstratable experience of overseeing and leading multiple workstreams, ensuring wider alignment with strategic goals
Exceptional stakeholder skills, with an ability to act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders within and outside of the team, and develop strong relationships across organisational boundaries and external stakeholders
Deep expertise in cutting-edge development in foundation models, with the ability to use this expertise to inform strategy.
Experience in shaping and delivering strategies that balance innovation with legal, ethical, and operational constraints in the public sector, with knowledge of AI ethics.

MoJ SCS Pay Band 1 Behaviours:

You will also be assessed against the following Behaviours during the Recruitment Process:

Communicating and Influencing
Leadership
Delivering at Pace
Changing and Improving

Read more in the Civil Service Success Profiles Section.

Recruitment Process

The selection process will be chaired by Dan James, Director of Justice AI Unit. The other panel members will be confirmed prior to interviews.

Support during the selection process

If you need any support or have any questions during any stage of the selection process, please contact the SCS Recruitment Team scsrecruitment@justice.gov.uk.

Stages of the selection process

Internal Stakeholder Conversations

You are invited to arrange an informal discussion with Dan James, Director of Justice AI Unit to learn more about the role and the organisation before applying. This is not part of the assessed elements of the selection process.

Application

You will need to complete the online application process accessed via the advertisement for this role.

This should be completed no later than 23:55 on 5^th October 2025. As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete:

Responses to the eligibility questions to check you are eligible to apply for the role.
A response to whether you would like to request reasonable adjustments during the selection process. The Disability Support section explains how adjustments can be made to the selection process to accommodate a disability.
You will also need to complete a CV and Statement of Suitability. It is important that your CV and Statement of Suitability give evidence and examples of how you meet the essential experience set out on page 8.

Find out more information about our application process here.

After the Application Stage

You will be advised whether your application has been shortlisted for the next stage of the selection process. If you are shortlisted, we will contact you to arrange the next stage of the selection process.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Panel Interview and Presentation

You will be invited to attend a face-to-face interview with the selection panel at 102 Petty France, London.

Shortlisted candidates will be asked to participate in an in-tray exercise on the day of interview, which will include being provided a task ahead of interview, and subsequently preparing a presentation to deliver in the first 5-10 minutes at interview. Full details of the exercise will be provided to Shortlisted candidates in the invitation to interview

’What is being assessed?

Behaviours, as listed on page 8.

After the Panel Interview

Following the interview, the performance of all candidates will be reviewed, and the successful candidate identified. All candidates will be notified of the outcome as soon as possible after the conclusion of all interviews. If you are not the successful candidate but you meet the standard required, you may be invited to have your details retained on a merit list to be considered for future SCS roles.

What are Behaviours?

The Civil Service recruits using Success Profiles and Behaviours are an element of Success Profiles used to see whether candidates are able demonstrate specific Behaviours associated with the role they are applying for during the selection process.

In this process the below Behaviours are most relevant to this role and will be assessed during the interview stage of the process. The definitions of Behaviours are set out below:

Communicating and Influencing

You communicate clearly and with confidence, both verbally and in writing. You are open, honest and transparent in your communications. You communicate effectively with internal and external senior stakeholders to present information in a convincing and influential manner. You tailor your communication methods and content to the audience, simplifying strategic messages.

Leadership

You visibly demonstrate the organisation’s values in all your activity, leading authentically. You seek to engage staff in the aims of the organisation and communicate the organisation’s strategy in an inspiring way. You create an inclusive and fair culture which creates a sense of belonging by treating staff as individuals and actively valuing diversity within the organisation. You empower teams and individuals to excel by creating a shared vision and objectives and demonstrate trust in staff by giving autonomy.

Delivering at Pace

You translate organisational strategy into clear objectives for activity within your area of responsibility. You promote this amongst staff and ensure teams take responsibility for delivering against objectives. You prioritise competing or conflicting demands and are able to decisively adjust activity based on changing requirements. You manage resource effectively to enable those in your area of responsibility to deliver. You delegate effectively, managing any risks associated with doing so.

Changing and Improving

You create an environment of continuous improvement and change. You see the benefit of change and promote this within your area of responsibility. You identify business needs, both current and future, and use this to identify opportunities for change, utilising innovative solutions that benefit the end user. You are able to embed change, managing risks. You evaluate the impact of change against the expected outcomes for service users and the public.

Please click here or more information on Behaviours and Success Profiles.

As part of the application process, you need to submit a Statement and CV. Both your Statement and CV should demonstrate how you meet the essential experience outlined in the Person Specification section.

Ensure you read through the role information thoroughly and identify the essential criteria for each area. You should ensure you provide evidence for each of the essential experience which are required for the role in your Statement and CV. You may not be progressed to the next stage of the assessment process if you do not provide this evidence.

When structuring your Statements try to:

Group evidence of the same experience examples together by using subheadings and paragraphs. This will help to ensure you are writing about the experience that is directly relevant for the role you are applying for.
You should ensure that you detail recent and relevant examples of the essential experience required for the role and describe the outcome that came from this.

Providing a name-blind CV and Success Profile Statements

In both your CV and Success Profile Statements please remove references to any personal information that could identify you. For example:

Name and title
Educational institution names
Age and gender
Email address
Postal address and telephone number
Nationality and immigration status.

This will help us to recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not on your background, gender or ethnicity. Recruiting this way is called name-blind recruitment.

For more information on how to write your Statement and CV please visit the Civil Service Careers Website.

Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing

Our departmental values - purpose, humanity, openness and together - are at the heart of our commitment to create a culture where all our people are able to thrive and flourish in the workplace.

We want to attract and retain the best talent from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We want everyone to be the best of themselves, to feel supported and have a strong sense of belonging in the workplace. Our commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce is reflected in all of our people policies and strategies.

Benefits

As a Ministry of Justice employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits which include but are not limited to:

Pension

The Civil Service Pension Scheme is one of the best workplace pension schemes in the UK public sector. Visit www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk for more details.

Generous Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance

25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays. This will be complemented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the King’s Birthday.

Flexible Working

While not every type of flexible working will be suitable for every role and business area, flexible working can take many forms and The Ministry of Justice is committed to delivering its business effectively and sustainably by creating modern and inclusive workplaces that enable smart, flexible and hybrid working.

For more information on our amazing benefits including our Civil Service Pension Scheme, annual and special leave, and our Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing schemes please visit our Senior Civil Service website.

What reasonable adjustments can be made if I have a disability?

We are committed to supporting all candidates to take part in the recruitment process. This includes supporting individuals who have a disability by making reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

If you feel you require any kind of support and/or would like to discuss this with someone, please indicate ‘yes’ to requesting reasonable adjustments in your application form and ensure that you respond to the Reasonable Adjustments Scheme team by email.

How we can support you

There are many types of reasonable adjustments that can be made during assessment processes.

Examples of some types of adjustments include:

Extra time to complete assessments
Providing a break within an assessment
Providing interview questions in a written format at the interview as well as orally;
An interview at a certain time of day;

This is not an exhaustive list but rather some examples of how we can support you during the SCS Recruitment Process.

Whilst we aim to confirm all adjustments requested, there may be occasions where this isn’t possible. If an adjustment cannot be provided, the reasons for this will be explained to you.

Help with your application

It is important you contact us as early as possible by email if you would like to request reasonable adjustments so that the recruitment process runs smoothly for you.

If you do decide during the process that you do require adjustments and you have not completed all your assessments, please contact the SCS recruitment team in advance of your next assessment.

If you have any questions in advance of making your application regarding reasonable adjustments please contact the SCS recruitment team at scsrecruitment@justice.gov.uk.

Do you offer a Disability Confident Scheme for Disabled Persons?

As a Disability Confident employer, the MoJ offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. This could be in terms of the advertised essential skills and/or application form sift criteria. Within the application form, you will be asked if you would like to be considered for an interview under this scheme, so please make us aware of this when prompted.

Can I apply if I am not currently a civil servant?

Yes.

Is this role suitable for part-time working?

This role is available for full-time or flexible working arrangements (including job shares). To discuss your needs in more detail please get in touch with the SCS Recruitment Team.

Where will the role be based?

If successful you will be based in London or Cardiff. Relocation costs will not be reimbursed.

This role will also require regular travel to 102 Petty France, due to engagement with senior stakeholders and Ministers.

Can I claim back any expenses incurred during the recruitment process?

Unfortunately, we will not be able to reimburse you, except in exceptional circumstances.

Am I eligible to apply for this role?

For information on whether you are eligible to apply, please visit Gov.UK.

Is security clearance required?

Yes. If successful you must hold, or be willing to obtain, security clearance to SC level. More information about the vetting process can be found here.

Will this role be overseen by the Civil Service Commission?

No. However, the recruitment process will still be governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles.

What do I do if I want to make a complaint?

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles.

Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact scsrecruitment@justice.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order.

To Shared Service-Connected Ltd (0845 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 08.00 - 18.00) or e-mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com)
To Ministry of Justice Resourcing (resourcing-services@justice.gov.uk)
To the Civil Service Commission (https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/contact-us/)

What should I do if I think that I have a conflict of interest?

If you believe that you may have a conflict of interest, you must declare it by contacting SCS Recruitment on scsrecruitment@justice.gov.uk before submitting your application.

We will ensure that we will treat all personal information in accordance with data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018.

Data Sharing

To process your application your personal data will be shared with the Ministry of Justice SCS Recruitment Team, campaign Panel Members and anyone else necessary as part of the recruitment process.

The legal basis for processing your personal data is:

Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. Personal data are processed in the public interest because understanding civil servant experiences and feelings about working in the Civil Service can inform decision taken to improve these experiences, and ultimately organisation performance.

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.

The legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data is:

Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department: it is important to know if groups of staff with specific demographic characteristics have a better or worse experience of working for the Civil Service, so that appropriate action can be taken to level this experience;

Processing is of a specific category of personal data and it is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained.
Please note if you are successful in your application your sensitive personal data will be used as part of the on-boarding process to build your employee record.

For further information please see the GDPR Privacy Notice.

Advert Closing Date	23.55 on Sunday 5^th October 2025
Outcome of CV and Statement of Suitability	w.c. 20^th October
Panel Interview and Presentation	w.c. 27^th October 2025 or 3^rd November