Senior Personal Assistant

(up to 12-month, Detached Duty/Loan or Fixed Term)
HEO

Judicial and Legal Services Policy Directorate

The Judicial and Legal Services Policy Directorate is recruiting temporarily for an HEO Senior Personal Assistant. This campaign is being run externally and so is open to all who consider themselves suitable for the roles and meet the eligibility criteria in the wider advert within Civil Service Jobs.

As this is a temporary role, your posting, if you were to be successful, will be dependent on your current employment, please note the terms below:

• If you are on MoJ T&Cs, you will be posted on Detached Duty with Temporary Responsibility Allowance

• If you are in another government department or HMPPS, you will be assigned on loan terms

• If you are not a civil servant, you will be offered a fixed term appointment

Location:

Successful candidates will be based in 102 Petty France, London

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 or full-time established jobshares

• 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

New entrants to the Civil Service will be expected to join on the minimum of the pay range. 

If you are already a civil servant and are successful in an external recruitment competition for a role with us, your starting pay will be the better of:

• promotion terms or transfer terms, as appropriate; or

• pay on appointment arrangements (minimum of pay range)

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 Judicial and Legal Services Policy (JLSP) Directorate

JLSP Directorate plays a unique and pivotal role in managing the complex and vital interaction between the Government and the judiciary. It supports the Lord Chancellor in fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities and oversees the policy relating to judicial and magistrate workforce issues, strategic judicial reform, judicial pay, pensions and diversity alongside negotiating the Courts and Tribunal Services financial settlement through the concordat process. The Directorate also has oversight of the legal services sector, including

its link to economic growth and trade and work to support the domestic rule of law. JLSP works closely with the senior judiciary, the courts service, senior legal service partners and industry to progress its agenda and therefore suits those who like to work across systems to deliver.

Senior Personal Assistant

You will work in a fast-paced and exciting environment where you will need to anticipate and resolve issues, prioritise competing demands and successfully support senior leaders so they can deliver their responsibilities. The role includes diary and inbox management, administrative support, line management of two PAs, and a range of business support functions.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Personal Assistant Responsibilities:

• Managing a Director and Deputy Directors’ diary and inbox, including arranging internal and external meetings, travel and resolving conflicting priorities.

• Ensuring meeting papers and briefing materials are prepared, organised and available in advance of meetings, in relevant OneNote folders and printed for the day diary.

• Align own in-office days with the Director’s requirements and ensure appropriate in-office cover is provided by the team throughout the week.

• Confidently and accurately relaying the views and opinions of Senior Leaders to staff in the Directorate and key stakeholders.

• Working closely with the Head of Office and Senior Business Manager to support senior leadership and Directorate priorities.

• Preparing, maintaining and cascading agendas and actions for senior leadership, divisional and Directorate meetings, including booking rooms and coordinating logistics.

• Coordinating contributions to senior leadership communications, updates and commissions, ensuring deadlines are met and information is shared effectively. Building and maintaining excellent relationships with colleagues across the Ministry of Justice and external stakeholders.

• Providing flexible support and cover across the wider team as required

Business Support Responsibilities:

• Coordinating Directorate stand-ups, information sessions and other key engagement activities.

• Supporting a range of business management activities, including business continuity, organisational information, reward and recognition processes, finance returns, travel management reporting and corporate contributions.

• Coordinating joiner and leaver processes for staff across the Directorate, ensuring records, distribution lists and organisational information are maintained and updated in a timely manner.

This list is not exhaustive, and the role and responsibilities will develop over time.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Proficient in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Teams.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to build effective working

• relationships and influence stakeholders at all levels.

• Excellent organisational, time management and prioritisation skills, with the ability to

• deliver to tight deadlines and work effectively at pace.

• Proactive, with the ability to exercise sound judgement and make informed decisions on

• behalf of senior leaders.

• Highly resilient and takes “can do" attitude to resolving issues.

• Ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team.

Desirable:

• Experience of providing support to senior leaders or directors, including diary, inbox and

• meeting management, and familiarity with business support functions.

• Experience of coordinating policy commissions and briefing requests, working with policy

• teams to gather information and provide timely support to senior leaders.

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 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, demonstration of Skills and Experience listed above.

Candidates invited to Interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

You will be assessed against the following behaviours at the interview stage where you will

be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated them. In addition, you will also be asked strength-based questions.

You will be assessed against the following behaviours at the interview stage 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:

• Communicating and Influencing

• Making Effective Decisions

• Delivering at Pace

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

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.  

Interviews are expected to take place mid to end of July 2026

At interview stage, if candidates do not score high enough to be appointed to an HEO role but have passed the minimal requirements, they could be offered a Policy role at the EO grade.

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 Amy.Leihal@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.