Executive Assistant

Job summary

Executive Assistants sit at the heart of senior leadership. You work closely with one or more senior leaders, helping them stay focused, organised and effective in a fast moving, high profile environment.

You take full ownership of complex diaries, making sure time is used well and meetings are purposeful. You anticipate issues before they arise, spot clashes early, and make clear recommendations so decisions are made quickly. You handle travel, correspondence and briefings with care and attention to detail, always thinking a few steps ahead.

You act as a first point of contact, building strong relationships with colleagues and external partners. You communicate clearly and confidently, adapting your style to different audiences. You handle sensitive information with discretion and sound judgement, understanding the importance of trust in this role.

You are comfortable working independently, but you also enjoy being part of a wider team. You share good practice and help create a positive, professional working culture. You look for ways to improve how things are done and are not afraid to suggest smarter, simpler approaches.

This role suits you if you enjoy responsibility, variety and pace. You like solving problems, bringing order to complexity and making a real difference behind the scenes. Every day is different, and your work directly supports senior leaders to do their best work. If you are organised, proactive and resilient, you will thrive in this role.

The Crown Prosecution Service is based in England and Wales. If you’re applying for this role and live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must let us know when accepting this offer as you need permission to work from your home address if hybrid working is part of your role. There’s no guarantee that we will grant this approval.

You must be aged 16 or over at the point of starting in this role. The expected start date is approximately 8–12 weeks after the application closing date. You are expected to commence employment as soon as possible following the expiry of your notice period. Requests for significantly later start dates may not be accommodated.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities

• To monitor the senior leaders/manager’s correspondence, ensuring that appropriate, and timely action is taken to resolve issues, respond to enquiries and requests, and in general maintain business continuity.

• To ensure that in the absence of the senior manager, all briefings, submissions and draft replies produced for or on their behalf meet an equally high standard and are approved and submitted to the appropriate organisation/department in a timely manner.

• To monitor and co-ordinate Parliamentary Questions, Parliamentary Enquiries and Parliamentary Correspondence, adhering to strict deadlines

• To maintain confidentiality in all areas of work.

• To monitor and coordinate complaints handling for senior leaders.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to demonstrate:

• Strong verbal and written communications.
• Highly proficient in MS Teams, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint presentations, and drafting letters correspondence, emails, and coordinating briefings, and excel in high-quality correspondence handling in a fast-paced working environment.
• Diary management.
• Strong drafting skills, setting agendas, and minute taking.
• Experience of organising meetings for senior leaders with technical and digital support online and in-person.

It is desirable that you have the below experience but this is not required to apply:

• Understanding on wider government and the civil service.
• Understanding of the Criminal Justice System (CJS).

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £31,840, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £9,224 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Join the Crown Prosecution Service and find your purpose.

Why we work for the Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service is passionate about ensuring that we're a top performing organisation and a great place to work. We're a committed equal opportunities employer, creating a culture where you can bring your whole self to work, and individuality is truly appreciated.

This culture of inclusion is underpinned by our staff networks covering disability, faith and belief, LGBTQI+, race, social mobility alongside our mental health first aiders programme and wellbeing sessions.

The Crown Prosecution Service commits to offer its employees the following experience.

• You can do impactful, purposeful work that’s making a difference to your local communities.
• You are able to learn and grow, with access to the right opportunities and resources.
• We care about your wellbeing.
• We want you to feel valued, trusted and included.

We also offer the following range of benefits:

• Civil Service contributory pension of up to 28.9%
• 25 days’ leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years
• £350 each year to spend on personal development
• lawyer training programme for all new prosecutors
• an extra privilege day to mark the King's birthday
• competitive maternity, paternity and parental leave
• flexible working including flexitime, and a family friendly approach to work
• Cycle2Work scheme, employee savings.

Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service is about inclusion, embracing differences and ensuring our workforce truly reflects the communities we serve. We want you to feel that you belong and can thrive, whatever your background, identity or culture. As a Disability Confident employer, we're happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments and improve your recruitment experience. If you'd like any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process, let us know within your application or contact jonathan.fairclough@cps.gov.uk.

The Crown Prosecution Service has fixed rates for its Executive Officer grade – a developing rate (the starting salary) and a spot rate (the maximum salary). Applicants typically join us on the developing rate and, after completing a 15-month development period, move to the spot rate if your line manager confirms you’re performing the role to a satisfactory standard.

If you’re joining the Crown Prosecution Service on a lateral transfer from another government department, you should contact us about the impact on your salary and the implications of any time you’ve already spent at that grade before applying or accepting an employment offer. Your salary may be adjusted if your location changes when you join us. This adjustment also takes into account any existing allowances that may have previously been consolidated into your basic pay – there’s no guarantee that you can retain these when you transfer.

We want to ensure our employees can thrive at work and home and offer a range of support to achieve a balance. This includes flexibility of working hours, flexibility to support caring responsibilities and a flexible approach to deployment. We offer a hybrid working policy. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

Recruitment process

The recruitment process consists of an online application and interview

Behaviours

You are asked to complete a statement of no more than 250 words for each of the following behaviours, setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience match the specified behaviours and requirements:

1. Delivering at Pace
2. Communicating and influencing
3. Making Effective Decisions
4. Working Together

In addition, you need to demonstrate the following experience/technical skills required for this role:

• Strong verbal and written communications.
• Highly proficient in MS Teams, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint presentations, and drafting letters correspondence, emails, and coordinating briefings, and excel in high-quality correspondence handling in a fast-paced working environment.
• Diary management.
• Strong drafting skills, setting agendas, and minute taking.
• Experience of organising meetings for senior leaders with technical and digital support online and in-person.

You also need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘Delivering at Pace’ first. If the standard on this behaviour isn’t met, the other behaviours won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.

CV

You’re not required to upload your CV. However, when submitting your application there is a ‘CV section’. You are required to provide information about your employment and/or academic history for the past three years. The CV section will be used as supporting evidence, it won’t be assessed.

It’s your responsibility to provide the specified information in the requested format to ensure that you're considered for the post.

If you're unable to cover three years through employment or academic history, you must provide a character reference for clearance purposes.

Interview

The interviews are expected to take place week commencing 23 November 2026.

A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact jonathan.fairclough@cps.gov.uk.

You should keep this week free or notify us if you're not available. We'll make every effort to accommodate your date preferences but we can't guarantee it.

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against EO in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 4 behaviours at interview stage:

1. Delivering at Pace
2. Communicating and influencing
3. Making Effective Decisions
4. Working Together

Essential Experience/Technical Skills - assessed at interview.

Other

This is a full-time post. We do consider requests for flexible, part-time working and job share, always considering the operational needs of the department.

Please note that the CPS is unable to offer visa sponsorship. If you require visa sponsorship to work in the UK, you will not meet the eligibility criteria for this role.

Clearance

If successful, you are required to securea Disclosure and Barring Service check and Security Check clearance, for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form, nationality and immigration questionnaire and national security vetting form.

If you're a Crown Prosecution Service member of staff, you won’t need to do a Disclosure and Barring Service check as you already hold this clearance.

The job you’re applying for is covered by Article 3(a) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, consequently Section 4(2) of that Act doesn’t apply.You’re required to disclose all previous convictions and cautions including spent convictions. Failing to make a full declaration will result in withdrawing your offer of employment if our checks reveal convictions that haven’t been disclosed.

To be cleared to Security Check clearance level, you have to be able to meet the residency requirement in the Cabinet Office guidance. For the Crown Prosecution Service, this is three years within the last five years

Reserve list

If you're recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancy, you will be put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another senior personal assistant post in the CPS if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.

Civil Service Commission

If you’re dissatisfied with the recruitment process and wish to make a complaint, please contact Strategic.Resourcing@cps.gov.uk with your concerns.

If you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a further complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page Recruitment Complaints - Civil Service Commission

Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles can be found at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/

Details of the Civil Service Nationality Rules are located at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website at https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a standard (or equivalent) criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

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)
• 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)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

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

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Jonathan Fairclough
• Email : jonathan.fairclough@cps.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : strategic.resourcing@cps.gov.uk

Attachments

CPS Terms and Conditions Opens in new window (docx, 255kB)NEW CPS Personal Statement Guidance 2023 Opens in new window (docx, 269kB)Executive Assistant Opens in new window (docx, 65kB)