Ministry of Justice

Background

The Northern Ireland Office supports the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in promoting the best interests of Northern Ireland. We make sure that Northern Ireland interests are represented within the UK Government and that UK government responsibilities are fully and effectively represented in Northern Ireland. We are the centre of expertise on Northern Ireland issues across Government.

The Northern Ireland Office employs around 165 staff, with offices in Belfast and London. As a small Department, we adopt a flexible project-based approach to ensure that we have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place to support the delivery of our key objectives.

Due to our structure and size, we are able to offer extensive exposure to Ministers and the opportunity to work on a far wider portfolio of policy and responsibilities than might be the case in a larger department. This creates an interesting and stimulating work environment.

Our key priorities are set out in our Operational Delivery plan and include:

• Supporting greater inclusion, tolerance and openness in Northern Ireland
• Contributing to a safer Northern Ireland, where terrorist and paramilitary groups are less able to cause harm to communities
• Ensuring that governance in Northern Ireland is responsive, transparent and able to deliver effective public service.
• Addressing the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland

For more information about what we do:

Visit:https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/northern-ireland-office https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice.

About the Role:  

The Northern Ireland Office is recruiting a Higher Executive Officer (HEO) to support the engagement, delivery and administrative functions within the Fiscal, Economy and Trade Group (FET). This role is dedicated to driving growth and prosperity in Northern Ireland, focused on supporting the economy by working with other Government departments, the NI Executive and wider stakeholders. 

The FET group covers a broad remit within the Northern Ireland Office, leading on a range of financial issues with HM Treasury and the NI Department of Finance. It serves as the interface between Whitehall and the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) on long term reform and short term pressures, including Northern Ireland’s fiscal position and the economic implications of exiting the EU. 

As an integral part of the FET team, you will provide essential support to the delivery of the group’s work programme. You will lead on the overall monitoring, governance and core business as usual operations of the wider team. This aspect involves playing an important coordination role to ensure FET group work and critical issues are completed to deadlines and that team members have clarity over work commissions from across the Department and Whitehall.

The successful candidate will also play a policy support role in ensuring the delivery of, and engagement on, growth oriented programmes such as the Industrial Strategy and Defence Growth Deal. You will support wider policy advice on how UK Government funding is delivered in Northern Ireland across sectors including Artificial Intelligence, Cyber, energy, sports infrastructure and skills. 

You will be expected to work with initiative, reacting confidently to emerging issues while providing surge support on key priority work to contribute to the advice provided to Ministers. This is a substantive, varied role with tangible delivery and policy outcomes in an area that will only get more important as we seek to address the economic challenges facing the Northern Ireland economy. 

Duties and Responsibilities:  

The main responsibilities of the role include but are not limited to: 

• Building effective working relationships with internal colleagues and external partners to ensure smooth operational delivery.
• Provide advice and briefings to Ministers and senior officials, and support senior official/ministerial visits and engagements with civic sector groups.
• Monitor media reporting and social media, highlighting any developments in the related policy areas and reporting to relevant teams across the NIO.
• Providing logistical and administrative support for the in-person delivery of external engagements and events.
• Represent FET at external meetings and events in Northern Ireland. 
• Deliver secretariat functions for a recently formed, cross-Civil Service group including monitoring the secretariat inbox, ensuring timely responses to stakeholders and triaging inquiries effectively.
• The role will also require working closely and effectively across the wider team to proactively identify opportunities to promote and deliver on the UK Government’s economic growth objectives. 

Essential Criteria:

• Organisational Skills: A track record of excellent organisational skills used to successfully deliver against competing priorities.
• Communication: Strong written and oral communication skills, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Pace: A proven ability to work at pace and under pressure.
• Relationships: The ability to build and maintain effective and responsive relationships with colleagues and stakeholders, particularly those that are externally facing.
• Initiative: A proven capability to work independently and with initiative, reacting confidently to emerging issues.

Desirable Criteria:

·        A good understanding of the political and economic environment in Northern Ireland. 

• Previous experience of working with Ministers (or equivalent senior decision-makers) and senior officials.
• Experience working in an economic policy role or a position involving engagement with Northern Ireland's key industrial and technology sectorw

Selection Process

The selection process will consist of two stages:

1) Sift:

Experience:

Please provide a CV with details of your education, professional qualifications, previous skills and full employment history; and a statement of suitability no longer than 500 words outlining how you meet the essential and desirable criteria. 

Your statement of suitability needs to set out evidence of how your experience meets the requirements set out above. Your layout is entirely your preference; you may choose narrative, bullets, etc. One narrative example may cover the requirements needed. You don’t have to explain the whole process, just what you have done and the skills and experience you have used. 

Share with us what makes you suited to this role and why. What you can do, the skills you have that are transferable and the life experience or passion you have that are linked to this role. If you don’t have work-based examples then give examples from school/college, clubs, volunteering or other activities you have been involved in. 

Your CV will not be formally assessed so please put the main evidence of your skills into your personal statement. Your CV will be used to add context to your personal statement.

2) Interview:

If you are successful at the sift stage and invited to interview, you will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated the behaviours listed below at the level appropriate to the post.

Behaviours:

• Communicating and Influencing; 
• Delivering At Pace
• Making Effective Decisions; 
• Seeing the Big Picture 

In the event of a large number of applications, the sift will be scored according to the lead behaviour: 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?

Strength:

The interview will also consist of two Strength-based questions:

Resilient - You have inner composure, recover quickly from setbacks and learn from them.

Organiser - You make plans and are well prepared. You seek to maximise time and productivity.

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.

If you do not have work-based examples then please give examples from school/college, clubs, volunteering or other activities you have been involved in.  

More information on behaviours, strengths and success profiles can be found here.

All applications for employment are considered strictly on the basis of merit.

Offer:

Once all interviews have been completed, you will be notified of the outcome by email. Offers will be made in strict merit order to the highest scoring candidate first.

The successful candidate will be notified of a start date following successful security checks.

Additional information received after the closing date will not be considered.  Failure to provide sufficient information in support of an application prior to the closing date will not be considered as grounds for an appeal if an applicant is not shortlisted for interview.

Security Clearance:

This role requires National Security Vetting given the access to sensitive information afforded by the job role.  You can find more information by reviewing the information held in the following links:

United Kingdom Security Vetting: Applicant - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The vetting charter - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In addition, there is a minimum UK residency requirement set by the Cabinet Office which is dependent on the security level required for the role.

This role requires SC and to be eligible to apply for this role you should have been present in the UK continuously for the past 5 years 

Neither Detached Duty terms nor relocation costs will apply to this post. 

Further Information:

Complaints:

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.  Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles.

Please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@sscl.gse.gov.uk) in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages:

http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/

https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/code/

Reserve Lists:

In the event that the advertised post following interview, identifies more appointable applicants than available posts, we may hold applicant details on a merit/reserve list for a period of 12 months from which further future appointments can be made. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact

MoJ-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com to be removed from the reserve list. 

Additional Information  

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The NIO 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 NIO 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.

Flexible working hours

The NIO offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. NIO welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the NIO’s Flexible Working policy.

Benefits:

• Access to learning and development
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension
• 25 days annual leave, increasing to 30 days after five years service.
• Public Holidays
• Season Ticket Advance

Networks

The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. 

Support

• A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
• Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
• For moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on GOV.UK or Childcare Choices. You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
• Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
• Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens. 

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by 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 you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order

• To Shared Service Connected Ltd (0845 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com);
• To Ministry of Justice Resourcing team (resourcing-management-office@justice.gov.uk);
• To the Civil Service Commission (details available here)

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to providing everyone with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities, by making adjustments throughout all elements of the recruitment process and in the workplace. We are able to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please see our Disability Confident Scheme Frequently Asked Questions webpage.

You will be able to request reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process within the application form. If you need additional help completing the application form, please contact the SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Interview dates  

Date(s) TBC

Closing Date:  

06/04/2026

Contact information 

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com