24133 - Senior Investigator - Prisons and Probation Ombudsman

### Job description
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman – SEO (Band B) Senior Investigator
Overview of role

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) is an Arm’s Length Body of the Ministry of Justice and investigates:

- complaints made by prisoners, young people in detention, offenders under probation supervision and individuals detained under immigration powers.
- deaths of prisoners, young people in detention, residents in approved premises and individuals detained under immigration powers.
- deaths of recently released prisoners that occur within seven days of release from prison (except homicide).

The Ombudsman receives around 4,500 new complaints a year of which around half are assessed as eligible for investigation. The number of deaths in custody requiring investigation is between 400 and 500 per year.

Senior Investigators in the PPO mainly investigate self-inflicted and other non-natural deaths. However, staff in this role require a flexible approach to be able to take on other work when business need requires it.

You will investigate the individual circumstances relating to each unique case within an agreed framework, providing quality assessments to specified timescales. You will reflect your findings and any recommendations for learning in written format.

You will also be expected to liaise with senior stakeholders and to lead or be involved in ad hoc projects as required.

We are a small and friendly organisation of about 110 staff. You will be part of a small team of investigators, reporting to a Grade 7 Assistant Ombudsman, who is responsible for ensuring the quality and timeliness of the investigation process and resulting investigation products.

This is a busy but very interesting post, which will suit someone who likes variety, is able to deal with the unexpected and who can engage with and analyse a range of different information sources to reach sound, evidence-based conclusions.

You will need to be self-motivated and well organised, with strong written communication and analytical skills. Previous knowledge or experience of the Criminal Justice System, investigations or casework would be useful but is not essential. Investigation training will be provided, and a rolling programme of enrichment workshops and development forums will be available.

You will need to be confident communicating with a range of stakeholders, including HMPPS staff of all levels of seniority, coroners, and clinicians. You will need to deal sensitively with bereaved families and be able to present the role of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s office in a positive way.

In order to undertake this unique role effectively, investigators will need to be able to work flexibly. You will be required to visit establishments in the PPO’s remit to support investigation activities such as interviews and engagement with prisoners and prison staff. This will entail travel around England and Wales and some overnight stays, though you would be responsible for deciding when and how to travel to establishments so can normally manage your travel around your personal circumstances. However, you may need to start early, finish late or stay overnight near an establishment.

The PPO is based at the HM Government hub at 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London. Currently, staff are expected to attend the office 60% of the working week, with the rest of the time spent working at home (or in commuter hubs). If you are visiting an establishment this will count as one of your office days. While you will usually have some flexibility to decide which days of the week you work in the office to enable you to manage your office attendance around your personal circumstances, there will be occasions when you will be required to attend the office (for example, team meetings, office or function-wide meetings).

Please note that the PPO is unable to offer home working contracts or allow you to permanently work at any other location, other than 10 South Colonnade, for the required office attendance days. Also, due to current immigration rules, it is unlikely that we will be able to sponsor any candidate who does not have the right to work in the United Kingdom.

If you are successful, you may need to attend the office more frequently in your first six weeks, to undertake key training and induction activity.

The salary range is £49,325 to £53,081, though we expect this to increase imminently.

External candidates joining the Civil Service will be expected to join on the minimum salary for the band. Successful candidates who are already at SEO will keep their base salary on transfer. Allowances do not transfer. Successful candidates joining on promotion will start on either the minimum of the salary range or receive a 10% increase to their current base salary, whichever is higher.

Job Description

The post holder will be responsible for the following:

- Investigating cases in line with specified casework timeframes and quality objectives, including conducting interviews with relevant staff on site, prisoners and other stakeholders.
- Contact with bereaved families by phone or email.
- Drafting high quality investigation reports and other investigation products concisely and in plain English, setting out the facts clearly and comprehensively, as well as the analysis and considerations that have led to evidence-based conclusions. This will include making recommendations, if required, and identifying areas of good practice.
- Arranging factual accuracy checking/ advance disclosure of draft reports, where necessary, and considering any comments received.
- Travel to establishments across England and Wales to conduct investigations and interviews and to undertake other related tasks. To facilitate these visits, you may need to start early, finish late or stay overnight near an establishment.
- Liaising with stakeholders and partner agencies as necessary throughout investigations.
- Supporting the wider work of the office through cross-office projects, mentoring, and other ad hoc activities.
- Any other appropriate tasks as required.

This role involves exposure to emotive and complex information, issues, and personal stories about some of the most vulnerable people in society. This includes offence information, trauma, substance use, mental ill-health, suicide and self-harm. It involves spending time in prisons and other establishments. You will have access to various support systems, but you will need to demonstrate emotional resilience.

Essential requirements

- Strong organisation and prioritisation skills to ensure that casework timeframes and objectives are met.
- The ability to identify the appropriate information sources, including policy documents and operational protocols and visual evidence, required for an investigation and analyse these in order to make evidence-based judgements and conclusions.
- The ability to conduct interviews in person on site to elicit evidence or check against other information sources.
- The ability to make sound judgements on complex and sometimes ambiguous and conflicting evidence.
- The ability to draft high quality investigation products clearly and concisely, using plain English, to ensure that learning can be implemented by stakeholders.
- Strong stakeholder engagement skills to ensure investigations and their outcomes are appropriately informed.
- An ability to consider the wider criminal justice landscape and where necessary, identify and comment on emerging themes clearly and constructively.

The Application and Interview Process

The PPO is a Disability Confident Committed Employer, and we ensure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible. Please complete the application information on reasonable adjustments and disabilities if relevant. Further information on the types of reasonable adjustment that can be provided can be found at https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/reasonable-adjustments/

This is a two-stage process.

Stage 1:

- Submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- Submit a statement of suitability (500 words) setting out how your skills and experience match the essential requirements for the role as stated above.
- Provide an example of where you have demonstrated the skills required for the Civil Service Behaviour ‘Making Effective Decisions’ (250 words).

To pass stage 1, a candidate will need to score a minimum of two out of three on their statement of suitability and four out of seven on the answer to the ‘Making Effective Decisions’ behaviour. If we receive a high number of high scoring applications, we reserve the right to increase this minimum benchmark.

The CV will not be scored but will be used to give context to the statement of suitability.

Stage 2:

Those who meet the required level at the application stage will be invited to a short final interview. During the interview, you will be asked questions about the Civil Service Behaviours ‘Making Effective Decisions’ and ‘Delivering at Pace’, as well as strength-based questions relating to the role.

You will also be required to complete a written test, following your interview, to demonstrate your ability to write investigation reports.

To be considered appointable, you will need to score a minimum of eight out of 14 for the behaviour questions, a minimum of four out of eight for the strength questions and a minimum of four for the written test. If we receive a high number of his scoring interviewees, we reserve the right to increase this minimum benchmark.

Recruitment across the Civil Service changed from July 2019 with the introduction of Success Profiles. Further guidance can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles .

Making Effective Decisions

Understand own level of responsibility and empower others to make decisions where appropriate. Analyse and use a range of relevant, credible information from internal and external sources to support decisions. Invite challenge and where appropriate involve others in decision making. Display confidence when making difficult decisions, even if they prove to be unpopular. Consult with others to ensure the potential impacts on end users have been considered. Present strong recommendations in a timely manner outlining the consideration of other options, costs, benefits and risks.

Delivering at Pace

Show a positive approach to keeping the whole team’s efforts focused on the top priorities. Promote a culture of following the appropriate procedures to ensure results are achieved on time whilst still enabling innovation. Ensure the most appropriate resources are available for colleagues to use to do their job effectively. Regularly monitor your own and team’s work against milestones ensuring individual needs are considered when setting tasks. Act promptly to reassess workloads and priorities when there are conflicting demands to maintain performance. Allow individuals the space and authority to meet objectives, providing additional support where necessary, whilst keeping overall responsibility.

When answering questions about the behaviours, you might want to use the STAR approach to help you to present your evidence more successfully. This approach provides structure and focus to your answers.

The STAR approach stands for:

Situation – briefly describe the context and your role.

Task – the specific challenge, task or job that you faced.

Action – what you did, how and why you did it.

Result – what you achieved through your actions.

You should keep the situation and task parts brief, concentrating on the actions you took and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. STAR may help you to cover all the points you need to make.

When using STAR, you should use one specific example per behaviour and you should explain what you did rather than others.

A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made should further vacancies become available.

Additional Information

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non-contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

For nationally advertised role: all successful candidates will be appointed to the nearest viable office nearest to their home postcode and on its respective pay scale. This will be at either a HQ building (subject to desk allocation, a Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or a Justice Satellite Office (JSO) – See Map . All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity).

For current MoJ employees, your base location will need to be changed to the nearest viable office (to your home postcode), either at a HQ building, JCC or JSO within the National Office Network and moved its location’s respective pay scale (any legacy arrangements/locations will need to be amended).

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.

MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain their grade on lateral transfer.

All candidates who are currently in receipt of Mark Time / Pay Protection should ensure they are familiar with the new policy on permanent and temporary promotion which can be found on the employee intranet.

Flexible working hours

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. MoJ welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy.

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.

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.

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 moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on www.GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/tax-free-childcare) or Childcare Choices (https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/) . You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/ .
- Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
- Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

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

- To Transformative Business Services (0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) );
- To Ministry of Justice Resourcing team ( [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) );
- To the Civil Service Commission (details available here (https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitment-complaints/) )

As a Disability Confident employer, MoJ are committed to providing everyone with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities, by making adjustments throughout all elements of the recruitment process and in the workplace. MoJ are able to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please watch our animated videos .

You will be able to request reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process within the application form. If you need additional help completing the application form, please contact the TBS Recruitment Enquiries Team.

Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy .

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 is committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ is able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidates will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

Civil Service Nationality Rules

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 (https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fsettled-status-eu-citizens-families&data=05%7C01%7Cchristopher.jeffery%40soprasteria.com%7C8a2293860362402c15da08dbf4cff146%7C8b87af7d86474dc78df45f69a2011bb5%7C0%7C0%7C638372946312587803%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=s%2BxUsev%2BGeeK%2FLgTUjpjfTJu%2FjpKQZ%2BQPJXNduvik3Q%3D&reserved=0)
- 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

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.

Contact Information

MoJ:

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail [email protected]

Please quote the job reference: 24133

HMPPS

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail [email protected]

Please quote the job reference: 24133

A sift based on the lead behaviour, Making Effective Decisions, may be held if a large number of applications are received. If a large number of applications remain after the initial sift, your application will be progressed to a full sift, where all behaviours will then be considered.
Strengths will be assessed but these are not shared in advance. To learn more about Strengths and how they are assessed please click here (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles/success-profiles-strengths).

Use of Artificial Intelligence (Al)

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.