HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Directorate: Digital Technology Services (DTS)

Pay Band: HEO

Job Title: Executive Assistant

Location: National

Successful applicants will be expected to be office based 3 days per week in any HMCTS Office (subject to business availability).

Term: Permanent

Interview: Video conference via Teams

Important salary details:

New recruits to the Civil Service joining MoJ are expected to join at the band minimum.

Existing Civil Servants applying on promotion, will usually be appointed on the salary minimum of the new pay band, or receive an increase of 10 percent on the current base salary, whichever is higher (This is restricted to the pay maximum of the new band).

Introduction:

These are exciting times at HM Court and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). As an agency of the MoJ, we support the judiciary across England and Wales to deliver justice by running courts and tribunals and processing outcomes, and we are looking for talented people to help us achieve our ambitions. It will be challenging, important and rewarding.

HMCTS Digital and Technology Services (DTS) is a specialist technology directorate which provides support to HMCTS in the use of IT and Digital.

DTS is committed to being a great place to work and part of our offer is brilliant training opportunities and support from expert colleagues. As well as that you’ll find flexible working, an inclusive culture and a place where your opinion is valued.

Please follow the link below for further information about HMCTS. www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service

Job Description:

As Executive Assistant to the Director/Deputy Director, you must have strong

organisational skills; be able to quickly analyse and interpret information; and have a passion

for communicating and engaging others.

Your key purpose in this role will be to support the Director/Deputy Director in their activities, ensuring effective administration of the Director/Deputy Director’s agenda.

Key Responsibilities:

As Executive Assistant, your responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

Key Responsibilities:

• Administering processes to ensure the Director/Deputy Director’s inbox, diary and agenda operates smoothly, dealing with items on behalf of the Director/Deputy Director and their senior management team.

• Providing diary management, administrative and business support to the Director/Deputy Director, including travel booking, hotel booking etc.

• Ensuring that day-to-day business for the Director/Deputy Director is well-organised and appropriately prioritised. This includes, but is not limited to, monitoring emails, analysing requirements, highlighting urgent matters, commissions or delegate work with appropriate deadlines and monitoring responses.

• Clearly recording and highlighting actions required to meet deadlines.

• Managing actions and responding to emails, ensuring that requests are being progressed and tracked. Ensuring the Director/Deputy Director’s actions are delegated appropriately, taken forward effectively, and completed on time.

• Ensuring the Director/Deputy Director’s instructions/views are communicated promptly and clearly.

• Dealing with issues in line with the Director/Deputy Director’s view, exercising judgement in their absence.

• Being a key point of contact for interaction with the Director/Deputy Director.

• Acting as a key contact for those engaging with the Director/Deputy Director, confidently communicating with others and providing a steer or recommendation on what the Director/Deputy Director’s priorities are.

• Communicating complex and difficult issues clearly and succinctly, highlighting the relevant issues and ensuring they are understood by the Director/Deputy Director and others.

• Maintaining regular liaison with the Director/Deputy Director’s internal and external stakeholders.

• Maintaining regular liaison with internal and external stakeholders - dealing with them politely, firmly, helpfully, discretely, and sensitively.

• Maintaining a high level of interaction with senior leaders within the Digital and Technology Services function.

• Working with the Directors’ Office and other Executive Assistants to deal with items quickly and efficiently.

• Fulfilling secretariat duties to meetings chaired by the Director/Deputy Director, as needed. Communicating with the public, the judiciary, other court users and representatives of other agencies and organisations.

• Contributing to key reporting activities.

• Providing support to the Director/Deputy Director’s team, as necessary.

Travel:

You will be required to undertake occasional travel to other HMCTS sites in line with business needs.

Skills & Experience:

• Highly organised, with the ability to provide high-quality support and advice to senior leaders and key stakeholders.

• Ability to understand and manage multiple work strands and priorities, ensuring work is coordinated and delegated effectively.

• Strong judgement and awareness, with the ability to identify and escalate key issues at an early stage.

• Excellent collaborative working skills, building effective relationships across HMCTS to support decision-making.

• Ability to provide clear, timely and appropriate advice on a range of business matters

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of building and maintaining effective working relationships with colleagues at all levels of an organisation, including senior leaders and external stakeholders.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly, confidently and professionally with a range of audiences.

• Experience of managing competing priorities, with strong organisational skills and the ability to work at pace and under pressure to meet deadlines.

• Ability to exercise sound judgement, identify emerging issues, take appropriate action and work proactively using your own initiative.

• Experience of working collaboratively as part of a team and modelling organisational values through a professional, inclusive and supportive approach.

• Experience of providing high-quality administrative, business support or executive assistant support to senior leaders.

• Experience of managing diaries, inboxes, actions and competing priorities within a fast-paced environment.

• Experience of engaging with and supporting senior stakeholders, handling sensitive information with discretion and professionalism.

Application process:

This role will be recruited using the Success Profiles Framework during the sift and interview process.

• Experience - As demonstrated in your application form.

• Behaviours - You will be required to provide evidence of the following key behaviours at HEO Level.

• Managing a Quality Service (at application)

• Making Effective Decisions (at application)

• Communicating and Influencing

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Strengths - The interview will involve a discussion around 2 strengths.

• Role play - As part of the interview process, you will complete a short 10-minute prioritisation exercise. No preparation is required, as all relevant information and instructions will be provided by the interview panel on the day.

We will aim to sift all criteria but, in the event of a large number of applicants, an initial short sift may be conducted on Making Effective Decisions only. Candidates who pass the initial sift will either:

• ⁠progress to a full sift where all application assessment criteria is then assessed.

• or progress straight to interview.

Reserve List:

HMCTS run a Reserve List, where candidates who are unsuccessful at interview by only a few points, can be offered other roles, at the same band, for up to 12 months. You will be able to view your status via the application screen. If you have been added to the Reserve List, your status will show either Merit or Reserve list.