Senior Policy Adviser, Youth Justice - Youth Justice and Offender Policy (up to 4 posts)

This vacancy is only available to existing Civil Servant employees and employees of accredited non\-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). Please review the "Eligibility" section before you apply.

General Information

Salary
The national salary range is £42,914 \- £46,182 London salary range is £49,325\- £53,081 Your salary will be dependent on your base location
Working Pattern
Full Time, Part Time, Part Time/Job Share, Flexible Working
Vacancy Approach
Cross Government
Location
Leeds, London
Region
London, Yorkshire and the Humber
Closing Date
16\-Jun\-2026
Post Type
Permanent
Civil Service Grade
SEO
Number of jobs available
4
Reserve List
12 Months
Job ID
18352

Descriptions \& requirements

Job description
Senior Policy Adviser, Youth Justice (up to 4 posts)

SEO

Youth Justice and Offender Policy

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

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 the Youth Justice Policy Unit

The Youth Justice Policy Unit is a team of around 40 people responsible for policy development across the whole youth justice system. We are a friendly, high\-performing team committed to making a real difference for some of the country’s most vulnerable children. We are recruiting for multiple SEO Senior Policy Advisers across a variety of roles.

The past decade has seen an impressive reduction in the number of children entering the youth justice system. However, beneath this headline, t are clear indications that t are challenges to be tackled across the system to rehabilitate children effectively and prevent reoffending. For example, our most recent statistics show that around two\-thirds of children leaving custody committed another offence within 12 months.

The aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by children and to support those who do offend in turning around their lives. The Youth Justice Policy Unit has a mixture of policy roles and roles running programmes. Areas of focus include:

• Prevention, early intervention and community justice – working across Government and with Arm’s Length Bodies on policies and programmes to address the needs of children at an early stage, and work to prevent offending.


• Youth justice service funding and performance – owning policy around ensuring the sufficient funding of youth justice services and effective monitoring and oversight.


• Courts and sentencing – improving outcomes for children through the courts systems, custodial and community sentencing, the use of remand, and the criminal records regime.


• Reform of our youth custodial estate – improving the existing estate, as well as the delivery of secure schools, a new type of custodial provision for children.


• Youth justice strategy – including monitoring and coordinating delivery of the recently published Youth Justice system reform and delivery plan: Cutting Youth Crime, Changing Young Lives.

Senior Policy Adviser, Youth Justice \- the role

As a Senior Policy Adviser in the Youth Justice Policy Unit, you will play a central role in designing and implementing policies that impact the Youth Justice System. This involves policy development, research and briefing, project oversight and partnership working. We are seeking candidates with policy experience, a collaborative approach and with a keen interest in criminal justice or social policy.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Policy development – developing innovative approaches to make a real difference to children’s lives and to keep children, victims and communities safe. You will draw on different sources of evidence and data to inform your work and demonstrate effective problem\-solving approaches.


• Advice, briefing and correspondence – ensuring Ministers, senior leaders, Parliamentarians and stakeholders are given clear, well\-researched and timely advice on live issues and areas of concern. This work is likely to include oral and written briefings, Parliamentary Questions and correspondence and feeding a youth justice perspective into wider work across MOJ and other government departments.


• Project oversight – scoping, planning and managing your work through project management techniques: managing risks, issues and dependencies and monitoring and progress. This can include reviews and research\-led projects

Partnership working – you will work * ly with partners in the youth justice system and beyond to resolve complex, cross\-cutting issues. Key partners include the Youth Justice Board, the Youth Custody Service within HMPPS, HM Courts and Tribunal Service, and other government departments, as well as frontline staff, the judiciary, and the charitable and children’s rights sectors.

Some of the posts may also include line management responsibilities and we strongly encourage participation in our corporate work, for example, on promoting staff wellbeing or learning and development.

Successful candidates will be matched into specific areas of responsibility, taking into account business need, as well as individual fit and preferences. All staff in the team are expected to be willing to work flexibly, in response to Ministerial priorities, wider team pressures and the events of the day. Candidates may be required to temporarily move to another role to support business need.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Ability to set or support strategic direction in a fast\-paced and complex policy environment, while working with a wide range of stakeholders, both internal and external.


• Politically astute, with experience of influencing and managing stakeholders at different levels with both credibility and effectiveness. This includes an ability to brief senior leaders and decision makers \- verbally and in writing \- on complex and high\-profile policies.


• Ability to support the delivery of complex programmes of work, ideally with experience of wider considerations such as governance, planning, project management, risk management, finances and resources.


• Confidence developing and using an appropriate evidence base to inform policy development and delivery.

Desirable:

• An understanding of the youth justice system.


• Experience of working on criminal justice or related issues.


• Experience working in a policy environment.

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, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.

*Behaviours*

During the application process you will be asked to provide an example of how you have met the following behaviour(s) (see Annex A for more information):

• Seeing the Bigger Picture

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

CS Behaviours 2018

Should we receive a large number of applications, we will sift primarily on the Statement of Suitabil

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