Turnaround Programme Manager

SEO

Youth Justice and Offender Policy Directorate

The Youth Justice and Offender Policy Directorate is recruiting permanently for an SEO Turnaround Programme Manager. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.

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, London, or 5 Wellington Place, Leeds).

Ways of Working

At the MoJ we believe in 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

The Work of Youth Justice Policy Unit

The Youth Justice Policy Unit is a team of c.40 people responsible for policy development across the whole youth justice system and delivering the Turnaround early intervention programme. We are a friendly, high-performing team committed to making a real difference for some of the country’s most vulnerable children.

The aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by children and to support those who do offend in turning around their lives. Areas of focus in the unit include:

• Early Intervention and Local System Delivery - working across Government, with Arm’s Length Bodies and Youth Justice Services (YJSs) on policies and delivering the Turnaround programme, to address the needs of children at an early stage and work to prevent offending.

• Sentencing, Courts and Criminal Records - improving outcomes for children through the courts systems, custodial and community sentencing, and the criminal records regime.

• Remand, Custody and Resettlement - reducing the use of custodial remand and improving the youth custodial estate.

The unit also has a central role in terms of the funding and delivery of the youth justice system and responding to priority issues, such as serious youth violence and the issue of disproportionate outcomes for different groups of children.

Turnaround is the MoJ’s youth early intervention programme, launched in December 2022 and funded to March 2029. Grant funding is used by YJSs based in local authorities to support children on the cusp of the justice system. A recently published evaluation found that low offending rates were recorded among children supported by Turnaround, and reported other benefits for children and families as well as systemic change in multi-agency working.¹

The Turnaround team consists of 3 Programme Leads (2 in a job share), 3 Programme Managers (including this role), a Grant Manager, and Programme Officer. We work closely with youth justice policy teams, YJSs, the Youth Justice Board and Other Government Department officials.

Turnaround Programme Manager - the role

We are looking for a motivated and experienced programme professional. The role is fast paced, intellectually challenging and exciting and gives candidates the opportunity to work on a programme that is making a real difference by diverting children from the justice system.

Role description:

• Acting as main point of contact for YJSs, supporting them with reporting requirements and other grant obligations

• Supporting and challenging YJSs on their programme performance to ensure children get the holistic support they need to stay out of the justice system

• Ensuring proactive engagement with individual YJSs to unblock or escalate any emerging issues, working with colleagues in YJPU and across Government as appropriate 

• Coordinating regular YJS regional engagement sessions and ensuring prompt reporting of data 

• Briefing Senior Officer Responsible (Deputy Director of YJPU), ministers and other senior stakeholders both regularly and on an ad hoc basis 

• Taking ownership of specific pieces of work to support aspects of programme delivery

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including the ability to work closely with YJSs on delivery of the programme, and support YJSs to improve their performance within an established framework

• Ability to work independently with strong planning and organisational skills, with excellent attention to detail

• Ability to manage a varied portfolio of work with strong time management skills and a successful track record of working on fast-paced tasks to strict deadlines

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, able to produce high quality briefing and reports, and synthesise complex topics for the target audience

• Ability to adapt and work effectively in response to stakeholder feedback

Desirable:

• Knowledge of the youth justice system, programme delivery, working with local government and/or grant management would be an advantage.

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 and statement of suitability, is 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 in order 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 500 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

Success Profiles - Civil Service Behaviours

Candidates invited to Interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

During the panel interview, you will be asked behaviour-based questions to explore in detail what you are capable of, and strengths-based questions to also explore what you enjoy, and your motivations relevant to the job role.

If successful at the sift stage, you will be asked by the interview panel to provide examples of how you meet the additional behaviours listed below.

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

• Managing a quality service

You will also be asked at least one strength question.

There is no expectation or requirement for you to prepare for the strengths-based questions in advance of the interview, though you may find it helpful to spend some time reflecting on what you enjoy doing and what you do well.

You can refer to the CS Strengths dictionary for more details: Success Profiles - Civil Service Strengths Dictionary (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Interviews are expected to take place in May 2026.

Contact information  

Please do get in touch if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team: Joanne Simpson and Helen Hildebrand (jobshare) - simpson-hildebrand@justice.gov.uk.

Annex A - The STAR method

Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.

Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.

• Where are you?

• Who was there with you?

• What had happened?

Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.

• What was the task that you had to complete and why?

• What did you have to achieve?

Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I" rather than “we" to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.

Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.

• What results did the actions produce?

• What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?

• Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?

Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.