Role title:

Judicial Information Officer

Team/Directorate:

Strategy and Change Directorate

Overview of the Judicial Office

This is standardised wording and cannot be amended.

The Judicial Office (JO) reports to, and is accountable, to the Lady Chief Justice (LCJ). It was established in 2006 to provide support to the LCJ and to the wider judiciary in upholding the rule of law and in delivering justice impartially, speedily and efficiently, following the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

In addition, we support, and are accountable to, the Senior President of Tribunals, whose responsibilities extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The JO is an interesting and unique place to work. Everything we do is in support of upholding the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. We work closely with HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and others across Government as well as with the legal professions.

We are an Arm’s Length Body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. This creates an interesting and complex environment in which to work where we agree our priorities with the senior judiciary and receive our funding to deliver them from the Ministry of Justice. The Judicial Office has been through a period of significant growth resulting from an expansion of our remit and responsibilities.

See JO staff talk about working here: https://design102.wistia.com/medias/uhgtmbtnlv

Overview of the team

Judicial Library and Information Services  

The Judicial Library and Information Service (jLIS) is a team of 14 people which provides legal publications and information to judges and legal advisers to ensure that they are equipped to carry out their duties effectively.    

This includes:  

• Provision of legal and online publications to 1,700 salaried judges, 7,500 fee-paid judges and 1,100 legal advisers in the courts and tribunals.  The framework which governs the provision of this service is set out in the “Protocol for the Provision of Legal Publications to the Judiciary" which is overseen by the Judges’ Council Library Committee.   

• A central legal research enquiry service for judges across England and Wales through the library at the Royal Courts of Justice, which provides judges with access to an unrivalled collection of print and online legal information and regular current awareness bulletins. 
   

• Managing the judicial help desk for the publication of court and tribunal judgments.  This entails liaising with judges and The National Archives to ensure that judgments are published in a timely manner and providing advice and guidance to judges who wish to publish their judgments 

The FtT SEC 

This Chamber is home to three different tribunals. The largest is the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal (SSCS). It decides appeals about an individual’s entitlement to a range of disability, work related and other benefits, appeals about liability to make child support payments and entitlement to vaccine damage payments and compensation under the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal hears appeals about whether and how much compensation can be paid to someone who has sustained injury as a victim of a crime of violence. The Asylum Support Tribunal hears appeals about decisions refusing asylum support or cancelling an existing award. 

Hybrid Working Requirement

This is standardised wording and cannot be amended.

This position is eligible for hybrid working (current minimum requirement for time spent at base location is 60%, which is subject to business requirements).

Summary of the role

Working within a small team of information professionals in the Royal Courts of Justice Library team, the successful candidate will be responsible for providing specialist information and library services to the FtT SEC.    You will also be expected to carry out other tasks as part of the library team.   

Responsibilities,

Activities & Duties:

• Ensure that judges in the SEC have access to the information that they need in a timely manner 

• Under the guidance of the SSCS National Information Lead and the Website Editor (both salaried judges), monitor caselaw, legislation and policy developments that are relevant to those sitting in the FtT SEC, and draft clear, accurate, concise and relevant summaries as required; 

• Work closely with the National Information Lead to produce a bi-monthly national current awareness bulletin covering relevant law and policy 

• Manage the SEC judicial website:  

• work with Website Editor to ensure content is kept fully up to date (including publishing key court and tribunal decisions within 3 working days of issue);  

• make agreed design and navigation changes as required;  

• Provide technical support for the SEC website and take the lead for planning the migration to a new platform 

• Work with the Website Editor and eJudiciary to ensure that the SEC judicial website is effectively hosted, supported, and maintained. 

• Provide enquiry and research services to judges in a clear, accurate and concise way and within agreed timescales 

• Support the FtT SEC information team in improving information provision. 

• Provide cover for other library tasks such as enquiries, cataloguing, database training, and producing current awareness alerts 

• You will be required to build strong and effective relationships with the relevant FtT SEC judiciary who are responsible for the strategy and provision of information within the Chamber as well as colleagues across the JO (and HMCTS and MoJ as appropriate) to gain early involvement with the judicial communications aspects of their work. 

Essential Knowledge, Experience and Skills

To be successful in this role you will either:  

• Be a qualified Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) Professional.  

• Have experience working in the welfare rights sector 

• Be a law graduate with experience of conducting legal research  

You will have:

• Strong attention to detail. 

• Ability to build strong professional relationships. 

• Excellent interpersonal and communications skills  

• Proficient and confident user of MS products especially, in particular Outlook, Word and Excel 

• Be highly customer-focused, committed to providing an excellent service 

Desirable Knowledge, Experience and Skills

• Ability to understand and summarise case law and legislation. 

• Understand audience needs and produce tailored content. 

• Knowledge of social security law and practice. 

• Knowledge of website/intranet content management systems.    

• An understanding of the judiciary, and/or the business of courts and tribunals. 

• Ability to work effectively on own initiative, with both internal and external stakeholders 

Behaviours (for Recruitment/Success Profiles):

• Communicating and Influencing (lead behaviour) 

• Managing a Quality Service 

• Making Effective Decisions 

• Delivering at Pace 

Assessment process at application

Civil Service Behaviours will be assessed at the application stage, alongside a 500-word Statement of Suitability and CV. The CV will not be scored. In the event of a large number of applications, we will sift on the lead behaviour ‘Communicating and Influencing’ only.

Assessment process at interview

Candidates invited to interview will be assessed onCivil Service Strengths and the behaviours listed in the job description

Security clearance required:

Select one of the below.

(this will be determined by the location)

• DBS

• CTC

• SC

• DV

Please note:

Central Government policy dictates that applicants for National Security Clearance must be a resident in the UK for these minimum periods:

• CTC - 3 years

• SC - 5 years

• DV - 10 years

CTC