36172 - Service User Engagement Lead
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
Personal experience of probation and/or youth justice as a service user is desirable for this post. It’s important to us that we are a truly inclusive organisation that seeks and responds to the knowledge and experience that those with lived experience of the services we inspect can offer.
We are offering this post on a two year secondment/ loan or
a two year fixed term contract. The post will be based in our office in Manchester but we do support flexible working.
If seconded, everything (including pay and employment terms & conditions) will be the same as you currently receive from the seconding employer.
The salary for those joining us on a fixed term contract will be £30,989.
This is a great chance to work in a unique organisation. Together we are committed to help improve the quality of probation and youth justice services in England and Wales. We know it is important to the public, to victims and to those who use these services that they are as good as they can possibly be.
Who are we? The job of HM Inspectorate of Probation is to report on the quality of work with adults and children who have offended which helps reduce reoffending and protect the public. Our Chief Inspector reports his findings direct to the Secretary of State for Justice.
View our website for more information: www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation
Who are we looking for? We are looking for a Service User Engagement Lead who can help us get the views of the service user embedded into the work of the Inspectorate. Ideally we are looking for someone with personal experience of probation and/or youth justice as a service user as we think they can provide the best advice.
This post will require travel and time away from home. Applicants must be sure they can meet this requirement.
Is this for you? The Service User Engagement Lead will help us involve service users in our work to improve the evidence we collect about the way services are delivered. They will also help deliver our service user engagement strategy and action plan. This is a unique post that will work with staff at all levels within the organisation.
The postholder will:
- Work with others to develop the best ways to involve those with lived experience in the activities of the Inspectorate.
- Advise on how the Inspectorate can use lived experience to help inform the way it runs.
- Help develop and deliver the Inspectorate’s Service User Engagement action plan.
- Work with service users to identify, understand and tackle barriers to them getting involved in inspection programmes.
- Help develop ways of getting service users involved in inspections and research projects, so that the voice of the service user is a key part of the evidence we collect.
- Attend inspections and other fieldwork to help coordinate the input of service users and those with lived experience to our inspection activity.
- Help identify and engage a network of contacts who can provide advice on what works best to engage those with lived experience.
- Identify good practice, develop it and promote it.
- Contribute to our effective practice products.
- Attend external events to help inform this area of work and to promote the work of the Inspectorate and what we do on service user engagement.
The following provides examples of the kind of work that the postholder could find themselves involved in to support our core inspection work, in particular. We are, however, looking for the postholder to consider new, as well as tried and tested approaches, to involving service users in our core inspections and other inspectorate work:
- Working with our inspectors and researchers to develop questionnaires or other techniques that can be used to gather the views of service users about the quality of probation and youth services
- Helping to pilot these tools in local areas to test which questions and methods of data collection (e.g. face to face or phone interviews) work best
- Liaising with local service user council representatives and peer mentors to seek their views on our methodology and their assistance with gathering feedback from service users
- Joining our inspection teams on inspection fieldwork visits to local probation and youth services to help lead on the collection of service user views during these inspections
- Helping to write up the findings from our service user engagement during inspections and contributing those themes to discussions with inspection team leaders on our inspection findings and ratings.
We will be looking for applicants who have good written and spoken communication skills, the ability to gain the confidence of adult and youth service users and who can communicate confidently with a wide range of people. We’re also looking for people with an excellent understanding of the probation and/or youth justice system through the lens of the service user, preferably including personal experience as a probation and/or youth justice service user; and a good record of building strong working relationships. An excellent understanding, or experience, of inspection, scrutiny or oversight would also be beneficial.
How do we select? You must complete your application, describing how you meet the required standard in the behaviours and abilities listed, by no later than Friday 21 August 2020. We will invite short listed candidates to an interview. Interviews are likely to be held during the week of 21 September 2020. Candidates will be asked to deliver a short presentation to the interview panel. The presentation question will be provided when the candidate is invited to interview.
We are actively seeking those with a criminal record who have experience of the probation and/or youth justice service. You will not be asked to declare any spent or unspent convictions at application stage. Once the successful candidate reaches the vetting stage, any unspent convictions will be considered against a specially designed risk assessment. Having a criminal record itself will therefore not prevent appointment.
Further information:
If you would like to talk about this post, please contact Dr Louise Falshaw on 07889 413693 or louise.falshaw@hmiprobation.gov.uk. We would ask that you please read the application information first.
We are committed to equal opportunity for all staff. We will not discriminate on grounds of gender, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, faith or any other factor not relevant to a person's work.
Working Arrangements & Further Information
Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.
Flexible working hours
The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices.
Benefits
The MoJ offers a range of benefits:
Annual Leave
Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years’ service.
There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.
Pension
The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.
Training
The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.
Support
- A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
- Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits,retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
- For any moves across the Civil Service may have implications on your ability to carry on claiming childcare vouchers
- Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
- Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.
Networks
The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order
1- To Shared Service Connected Ltd (0845 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com);
2- To Ministry of Justice Resourcing (resourcing-services@justice.gov.uk);
3- To the Civil Service Commission (details available here)
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity.
There is a guaranteed interview scheme (GIS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
Grading Structure Review
The Ministry of Justice is currently undergoing a review of posts which are currently graded at Band A to realign our grading structure with the majority of the wider Civil Service.
Posts advertised at Band A may be graded at either Grade 6 or Grade 7 once the review has taken place.
21/08/2020, 23:55 hours.
To apply for roles in MOJ you will need to confirm your employment history for at least 3 years prior to the date of application so that pre-employment checks (BPSS) can be undertaken. If you have spent significant time abroad (a total of 6 months in the past 3 years) you would be required to give a reasonable account of the reasons why.
For some roles you will be required to successfully complete National Security Vetting at Counter Terrorism (CTC), Security Clearance (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV) level as a condition of appointment. To meet CTC/SC/DV requirements you will normally need to have been resident in the UK for at least 3/5/10 years prior to the date of application (The level of checks that are required are stated in the advert).
If you do not meet the above requirements, you may still be considered if, for example:
- You've been serving overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of HM Government
- You were studying abroad
- You were living overseas with parents
In such cases you will need to be able to provide referee cover for the period(s) of residence overseas. The duration of overseas residence and the country of abode will also be taken into account.
Success Profiles will enable a fairer and more inclusive method of recruitment by enabling us to assess the range of experiences, abilities, strengths, behaviours and technical/professional skills required for different roles. This flexible approach to recruitment focuses more on finding the right candidate for the specific role. To find out more about Success Profiles to support your application please click here for further guidance.
We have provided detail of the assessment stages and areas being assessed to help you prepare for completing your application form, and to advise of what will be assessed following this, if you successfully pass the application stage.
Application form stage assessments
Interview stage assessments
A Great Place to Work for Veterans
The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.
For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans
Redeployment Interview Scheme
Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ are committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.
MoJ are able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidate's will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
· UK nationals
· nationals of the Republic of Ireland
· nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families
· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
· individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
· Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules
This Vacancy is closed to applications.