Senior Policy Adviser, MoJ/HMPPS Joint Strategic Policy Unit

(up to 3 posts available)

SEO

Prisons Directorate

The Prisons Directorate is recruiting permanently for SEO Senior Policy Advisers. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.

Candidates are reminded that to be eligible for this campaign; you must still be employed as a civil servant at the point of accepting the role. If you resign or your FTA contract ends before you are made and accept an offer, you will become ineligible and you will be withdrawn from the process.

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 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, 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 Joint Strategic Policy Unit

The Joint Strategic Policy Unit takes on priority work to support prison and probation delivery. This unit sits in both the Prisons Directorate in the Ministry of Justice, and the Strategy, Performance and Standards Directorate in H.M‘s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS).

Our team provides high-quality advice to senior officials, Ministers, and across Government, on immediate challenges in the prison and probation system, as well as leading longer-term strategic planning and preparations. We work collaboratively across a wide range of policy and operational topics with colleagues across the MoJ, HMPPS and other government departments. The Joint Unit delivers high quality work often at pace.

Our areas of focus are typically high priorities for the Government and include a mixture of reactive work and planned project delivery. Examples of the strategic and operational projects we have delivered include: coordinating and delivering work across major areas of criminal justice reform, leading on Spending Review preparations for HMPPS, delivering a strategic cross-justice system response to prison capacity pressures, reviewing operational approaches to policies such as vetting, support for prisoners on remand, delivery of prisoner resettlement services, and probation supervision requirements.

We are a friendly, enthusiastic and collaborative team that places a strong emphasis on ensuring members feel happy, supported and engaged in their work. We are committed to delivering high-quality and impactful projects, working closely with partners, and supporting everyone to play their part to improve prison and probation services. We have a strong commitment to personal and career development, helping everyone to grow and fulfil their potential, providing support and stretch.  

Senior Policy Adviser- the role

The roles vary depending on the priorities of MoJ / HMPPS. We are looking for someone who is flexible, motivated, and keen to take on new challenges. Some examples of the type of work are set out below.

• Setting up projects, with appropriate governance arrangements to support the project, identifying risks and mitigating action and reporting on progress to senior managers and stakeholders.

• Developing, planning the delivery of and consulting on new operational policy or legislative changes in respect of the relevant policy areas, and assisting with their implementation including drafting new guidance.

• Responsible for researching, drafting and producing clear and well evidenced submissions to Ministers which often comment on complex and sensitive inter-departmental issues, for which agreement must be sought.

• Undertaking detailed research for questions of policy, including international research, and providing interpretation of the published guidance.

• Liaising with legal advisors to ensure policy objectives are met and are consistent with legal advice, and analysis and research teams to ensure policy development is robustly evidenced.

• Representing the policy area and team at meetings with HQ and frontline staff - and feeding back information to senior management.

There may be the opportunity for line management within the role.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Excellent stakeholder management and engagement skills and experience.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills to build strong relationships and bring stakeholders on side.

• Ability to understand complex issues and communicate them effectively to a range of audiences, including senior officials and Ministers.

• Ability to think strategically and keep one eye on the bigger picture while maintaining keen attention to detail.

• Experience of working with analysts and lawyers, and ability to navigate complex or incomplete evidence and data to inform policy development.

• Excellent written and oral communication

• Experience of developing evidence-based policy solutions and recommendations to meet ministerial and departmental objectives

Desirable:

• Experience and knowledge of the criminal justice system, particularly prisons and probation.

Additional Information

• 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.

• 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 750 words stating what you would bring to the role and demonstrating how you meet the essential and desirable Skills and Experience listed above.

Should we receive a large number of applications, we will sift primarily on the Statement of Suitability. Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview, testing both behaviours and strengths.

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.

Behaviours:

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

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

Interviews are expected to take place August 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.

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.