Ministry of Justice

Job Title                              

Business and Diary Manager for the Chief Operating Officer

Grade                         

HEO x 1

Business Group       

Chief Operating Officer Group

Contract Type           

Permanent

Directorate                 

Chief Operating Officer Group

Team                          

DG COO Private Office

Location                     

National

The Chief Operating Officer for the Ministry of Justice is recruiting for a HEO Business and Diary Manager. This campaign is open to all staff within the Ministry of Justice and is available on level transfer and substantive promotion.

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 COO Group

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) Group sits at the heart of the Ministry of Justice, providing the corporate leadership, expertise and functional services that enable the department to deliver its priorities and operate effectively. COO Group, led by Nick Donlevy, brings together a range of specialist functions including finance, commercial, property, planning and performance, public bodies oversight, project delivery, and transformation. Through these functions, the Group supports frontline delivery across prisons, probation, and courts, helping to ensure a justice system that works for everyone. COO Group is a national organisation with over 1,600 staff and is involved in almost every aspect of departmental delivery.

Business and Diary Manager

The Diary and Business Manager will join a small, high-performing team which sits at the heart of the Department. The DGCOO Office is a fast-paced environment which supports the COO, Nick Donlevy, in all of his work. The Diary and Business Manager will need to be flexible and responsive to changing priorities and will gain a ‘helicopter view’ of how the Department works. In addition to his COO responsibilities, the Private Office also supports the COO in his corporate duties, such as being the MoJ Executive Committee’s Faith and Belief Champion.

The Business and Diary Manager will manage the COO’s diary as well as support him to effectively lead COO Group and by undertaking a wide range of responsibilities. As a collaborative Private Office, team members regularly work across traditional role boundaries, providing opportunities to broaden experience and take on additional tasks in line with business need and individual interests.

The postholder will play a key role in helping the COO balance competing priorities and make best use of their time, exercising sound judgement and building strong relationships across the department. The successful candidate will be trusted to manage competing demands support the COO to focus time and attention on his and the department's highest priorities.

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.

Travel Requirements

Occasional travel to London is required for this role.

Skills and Experience

The role will involve:

• Management of the COO’s diary, commitments, and priorities, ensuring effective scheduling, resolution of conflicting demands, working closely with the rest of the Private Office to ensure the COO is using his time to further Departmental priorities and meet his commitments.
• Strategic oversight of how the COO spends his time, needing to be aware of the corporate priorities and ministerial priorities when dealing with diary and conflicts.
• Co-ordination of the COO’s meetings and visits, including travel arrangements, and adherence to departmental policies relating to travel, expenses, gifts, and hospitality.
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders across the department and externally in order to be an effective channel of communication for the COO to ensure his priorities are communicated effectively and delivered promptly.
• Support triaging the shared mailbox, managing, and prioritising the high volume of work and demands on the COO and COO PO.
• Support the commissioning, preparation and management of meeting papers and briefings, ensuring the COO is fully prepared for meetings and key engagements.
• Carrying out business management tasks for COO group including, but not limited to, the maintenance of COO Group records and reporting, supporting COO personnel management and managing the Honours nominations, including Royal Garden Party nominations, for COO Group.
• A significant number of reactive and proactive tasks, including administrative responsibilities – these will be varied and the postholder will need to be well organised and willing to help the wider team. As a team we want to develop all of our members to achieve their career goals so we will decide on the portfolio of tasks with a view to both business need and development objectives.
• Undertake additional duties and responsibilities appropriate to the grade as required, including reasonable adjustments to the role in line with business needs.

Essential Criteria

You will:

• Be able to work effectively with a diverse range of colleagues in the Department as well as external stakeholders, establishing strong working relationships. (Assessed via Statement of Suitability)
• Have excellent written and oral communication skills. (Assessed via Lead behaviour Communicating and Influencing)
• Be effective at managing a demanding workload, prioritising and organising effectively, and working at pace and under pressure. (Assessed via Statement of Suitability)
• Have sound judgement and take a proactive approach to resolving emerging issues. (Assessed via Statement of Suitability)
• Be a team player who has a strong understanding of your work area and how it links to wider departmental and cross-government priorities. (Assessed via Statement of Suitability)
• Take responsibility for resolving problems, working jointly with others where issues impact across teams or functions. (Assessed via Lead behaviour Communicating and Influencing)
• Be able to work with discretion and empathy in supporting the COO, in particular on SCSHR related matters. (Assessed via Lead behaviour Communicating and Influencing)

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.

Application Sift Stage

Behaviours

During the interview you will be asked to provide an example of how you have met each of the following behaviour, with reference to the specific essential criteria noted above (see Annex A for STAR method guidance):

• Communicating and Influencing (Lead Behaviour)

Please refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details, including by grade:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles/success-profiles-civil-service-behaviours#why-we-assess-behaviours

Experience

You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process to assess any demonstrable experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to the role.

You will also be asked to provide a Statement of Suitability of no more than 500 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the specific essential criteria listed above.

If we receive a large number of applications, we will carry out an initial sift on the lead criteria of 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 behaviours (listed below) at the interview stage and will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated the behaviours.

• Communicating and Influencing (Lead Behaviour)
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions

In addition, you will also be asked two strength-based questions.

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: lucy.miles1@justice.gov.uk (Private Secretary)

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?

Behaviours:

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?

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 here.

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.