MoJ Departmental Operations Centre (DOC) Role Profile

About the Department 

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a major government department, working to protect and advance the principles of justice. One of the largest government departments, we employ around 70,000 people, with an annual budget of approximately £9 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at around 350 courts and tribunal centres, and over 100 prisons in England and Wales. We are making a difference, and you could be part of it.  

About the Division

The MoJ Departmental Operations Centre (DOC) leads corporate business continuity, resilience and incident/crisis management and response work across the MoJ, providing support to agencies and ALBs/NDPBs, and working with the centre of government to fulfil departmental requirements.

Through our work we aim to make the department more resilient to shocks and unforeseen events, ensuring that where they cannot be prevented, the department has the necessary plans and preparations in place to safeguard the continuity of critical business, and the necessary skilled resource and processes to run comprehensive incident and crisis response.

We operate in an environment in which we invest in staff through learning and development, promoting health and wellbeing, and putting the individual first.​ Everything we do is underpinned by an open and inclusive culture, within which staff feel confident in bringing their whole selves to work. Continuous improvement, innovation, and constructive challenge are both sought and encouraged.

About the Team 

We are creating a new team within the DOC which will lead on developing and running the MoJ’s corporate business continuity and resilience exercising and training programme.

The Corporate Exercising and Training Team will ensure that the department and its agencies are appropriately equipped and trained to respond to high impact internal and external risks, working alongside all business areas within the MoJ. The team will also provide the link between the MoJ and lead government departments/COBR in respect to external exercising requirements.

Job Description, Duties and Responsibilities

This role will provide the post-holder with experience of working across all areas of a large central department, interacting with senior leaders, ministers and their offices, and other departments across government.

Purpose of role:

This is an exciting new role, where you will work with the G7 team lead, to design the department’s exercising strategy, approach and associated delivery programme. The exercising team will champion our exercise programme against both internal and external risks and undertake outreach work across all of the MoJ’s varied business areas to build our organisational resilience.

This team’s role is to enable all parts of the department to exercise their contingency plans against a range of challenging scenarios, and manage the lessons identified from them in a way that promotes resilience across the whole of the MoJ.

The Corporate Exercising and Training Team will also lead the coordination and engagement of the MoJ’s response to national (all government departments, via the COBR Unit) and local (led by other government departments) exercises. The team will work with criminal justice system (CJS) partners to develop exercising scenarios against the risks detailed in the newly created cross-CJS risk register.

Key responsibilities include:

• Supporting the design, delivery, embedding and continuous improvement of a new cross-departmental exercising strategy. Working closely with a wide group of stakeholders, this new strategy will test the department’s capabilities in responding to incidents and crises that could materialise from departmental risks, as well as external events.

• Creating and facilitating a wide range of exercises to test the readiness and viability of departmental contingency plans to key risks.

• Drafting reports following exercises, capturing areas to improve and ensuring that lessons are captured. Following up on these reports with the business areas.

• Working closely with the Business Continuity, Resilience and Crisis Management Teams within the DOC to support the development and delivery of training sessions for colleagues within key business areas of the MoJ.

• Managing and developing an HEO team member, providing guidance, support, and performance management.

Person Specification

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability, and behavioural approach against the following key criteria:

Essential Criteria

• Experience of designing and delivering exercises to a range of audiences.

• Demonstrable experience of delivering high‑quality services, including service improvement or change activity.

• Proven ability to prioritise workloads and manage delivery under pressure.

• Track record of delivering at pace and maintaining service quality.

• Experience of working collaboratively with stakeholders.

• Excellent written and verbal briefing and communication skills.

Further Details

The role can accommodate a hybrid approach, postholders will be subject to the current policy for hybrid working and working from an office location. Where people have reasonable adjustments, we will treat these in line with normal policies and procedures to consider what adjustments can be made.

For nationally advertised role: 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.

Application Process

This recruitment will follow the Civil Service Success Profile process. Candidates will be expected to provide:

• A Statement of Suitability, of no more than 750 words, in support of your application explaining your suitability based on the Person Specification detailed above.

• Evidence of the lead behaviour: ‘Managing a Quality Service’ (250 words) at SEO level, using the guidance contained in the Civil Service Success Profiles framework

• A CV detailing your work experience and achievements. This should be no more than 2 sides of A4 and should be anonymised to remove personal details that could identify you.

In the event of a high number of applications, the initial sift will be based on the lead behaviour evidence (250 words) - Managing a Quality Service.

Application Guidance

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply and how to complete a Personal Statement

Application Guidance

In MoJ, we recruit using a combination of the Success Profiles Frameworks. If you are successful at sift, you will be invited to an interview which will use the Civil Service Success Profiles.

You will be asked to provide a five-minute presentation on what you feel makes an effective departmental level exercise.

In addition, candidates should expect Behaviour questions on:

• Managing a Quality Service

• Communicating and Influencing

• Changing and Improving

• Developing Self and Others

• Strength based questions relevant to the role

A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above. 

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview held over Microsoft Teams.