Head of Strategic Resourcing

Job summary

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is seeking an experienced and forward-thinking Head of Strategic Resourcing to lead one of the most critical elements of our People agenda: ensuring we have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time to deliver justice.

Reporting to the Deputy Director of People Services, this is a senior leadership role with responsibility for shaping, implementing and delivering CPS’s strategic and operational resourcing approach across the organisation. You will lead end-to-end resourcing strategy and delivery, ensuring recruitment practices are rigorous, fair, inclusive and effective, while responding to a complex and evolving labour market during a time of organisational growth.

A core focus of the role is supporting CPS capability through evidence-led resourcing solutions, including the development and delivery of approaches to attraction, retention and workforce supply planning. You will use insight, data and workforce intelligence to identify risks, develop innovative solutions and influence senior leaders on actions to sustain critical capability.

As Head of Strategic Resourcing, you will be accountable for the performance, quality and integrity of CPS recruitment — from attraction and campaign design through to selection, appointment and onboarding. Operating in a complex and highly competitive labour market, you will ensure recruitment activity is efficient, inclusive, legally robust and capable of delivering at scale, including high-volume and specialist campaigns.

You will be an innovative thinker, leading the team and collaborating with technical specialists to deliver a new Applicant Tracking and onboarding system. You will be forward thinking, considering how we can use technology (including Artificial Intelligence) ethically to enhance our resourcing processes.

You will be a team player and as a member of the People Services leadership team, you will work collaboratively with the wider People Function driving strategic and operational decision making. You will work across the People Function and wider CPS, partnering closely with Communications, Finance, Operations and Digital colleagues, as well as external partners and suppliers. You will also oversee commercial recruitment arrangements, employer branding and recruitment marketing activity to maximise reach, quality and value.

This role offers the opportunity to operate at a genuinely strategic level, leading a high-performing specialist team and shaping resourcing solutions that directly support CPS priorities, uphold our values and strengthen public confidence in the criminal justice system.

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 before starting in this role. The start date is expected to be 8-12 weeks after the application deadline.

As part of this role, you are expected to undertake direct line management responsibilities.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities

• An active corporate leader across the People Function as part of the Senior Leadership Team.
• Provide senior leadership and accountability for the end-to-end resourcing strategy and delivery across CPS, ensuring recruitment practices are fair, inclusive, data-driven, legally compliant and effective in meeting organisational priorities.
• Drive innovation and the implementation of a new Applicant Tracking and Onboarding System, streamlining recruitment processes and enhancing customer and candidate experience.
• Set the strategic direction for recruitment marketing and attraction activity, including oversight of employer branding and campaign delivery to maximise reach and quality of hire.
• Lead corporate workforce supply planning, using insight, analytics and labour market intelligence to identify risks, develop innovative solutions and influence senior stakeholders.
• Build and maintain strong partnerships across the People Function, wider CPS, external stakeholders and suppliers to deliver modern, flexible resourcing solutions.
• Regularly provide progress reports through formal governance routes such as to the Executive Group and Board.
• Lead, motivate and develop a high-performing Strategic Resourcing team, overseeing performance, wellbeing, budgets, commercial partnerships and continuous improvement. Proactively identifying and mitigating risks.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to:

• have significant senior experience in successfully leading a large-scale recruitment operation to deliver results within a complex, large-scale organisation with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
• be an inclusive leader with a strong track record of leading and motivating multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed teams, in a pressured, operational environment, as well as a successful track record of successfully delivering as part of a People Function Senior Leadership Team, enabling cross-functional working and positive outcomes.
• be a skilled innovator, with evidence of successfully implementing continuous improvements within a resourcing environment leading to positive outcomes. You will have an understanding of resourcing technology and ways to optimise the use of this to support delivery, as well as customer and candidate experience.
• be able to use market research, business insights and data to identify resourcing risks, develop evidence-based solutions and influence senior stakeholders at all levels across the organisation.
• be Chartered member of Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) or be prepared to start working towards that within 12 months of taking up appointment.
• where candidates do not hold CIPD professional membership, they will need to demonstrate a significant track record of successfully delivering at senior levels in HR roles or roles that can bring transferable skills and experience.

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

• experience of implementing resourcing technology
• experience of developing and implementing organisational retention strategies, particularly in roles or professions where external supply is constrained.
• experience of working within the justice sector, including prosecutorial, courts or related delivery environments.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Making Effective Decisions

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £76,870, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £22,269 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.

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 daisy.gabriel1@cps.gov.uk.

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.

The Crown Prosecution Service also has a range of development programmes to support all aspiring, new and experienced managers with developing the skills, behaviours and knowledge to build their confidence and capability. Our Manager Induction Programme is mandatory for all newly appointed managers. This is a fantastic opportunity to support all our new Crown Prosecution Service managers with the tools required to perform effectively in their roles.

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, staff engagement exercise, interview and assessment. The interview and assessment are expected to take place on the week commencing 24th August 2026 at Walker House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool, L2 3YL.

A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact daisy.gabriel1@cps.gov.uk.

You should keep these dates 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.

Assessment

We will ask you to complete an assessed presentation as part of the recruitment process for this role. We will provide details a week in advance of the interview.

Personal statement

We ask you to complete a personal statement of no more than 1,250 words. You need to demonstrate the following experience/technical skills required for this role, you need to:

• have significant senior experience in successfully leading a large-scale recruitment operation to deliver results within a complex, large-scale organisation with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
• be an inclusive leader with a strong track record of leading and motivating multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed teams, in a pressured, operational environment, as well as a successful track record of successfully delivering as part of a People Function Senior Leadership Team, enabling cross-functional working and positive outcomes.
• be a skilled innovator, with evidence of successfully implementing continuous improvements within a resourcing environment leading to positive outcomes. You will have an understanding of resourcing technology and ways to optimise the use of this to support delivery, as well as customer and candidate experience.
• be able to use market research, business insights and data to identify resourcing risks, develop evidence-based solutions and influence senior stakeholders at all levels across the organisation.
• be Chartered member of Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) or be prepared to start working towards that within 12 months of taking up appointment.
• where candidates do not hold CIPD professional membership, they will need to demonstrate a significant track record of successfully delivering at senior levels in HR roles or roles that can bring transferable skills and experience.

In addition, you need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

Staff Engagement Exercise

If you are successful at sift, you are invited to a staff engagement exercise where a report is generated and sent to the panel ahead of your interview and assessment. The staff engagement exercise is expected to take place on the 11th August 2026 via Microsoft Teams. This exercise will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, it is designed to support the panel's decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

Interview/Assessment

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against Grade 6 level in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing five behaviours at interview / assessment stage

1. Leadership (lead behaviour)– interview and Staff engagement exercise
2. Seeing the big picture- interview
3. Managing a quality service – interview
4. Communicating and influencing - interview and assessment
5. Making effective decisions –assessment

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘leadership’ 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

Please upload an up-to-date CV which should include:

• three years’ employment and/or academic history
• skills and experience
• achievements
• qualifications.

You need to attach your CV as an anonymised document of no more than two A4 pages, to provide the panel with an insight into your work history and experience. We ask that you do not provide personal details which could identify you like name, age, home address.

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

If you’re unable to cover three years through employment and/or academic history, you need to provide a character reference for clearance purposes. The reference will be required at onboarding if you’re offered the role.

Strengths

Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the 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. Therefore, 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 secure a 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.

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.

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.

Reserve list

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

Fraud check

The Crown Prosecution Service provides a Fair Processing Notice to all new applicants after they’ve been successful at interview. These candidates are informed that, as one aspect of pre-employment screening, their personal details – name, National Insurance number and date of birth – are checked against the Internal Fraud Database. We won't employ anyone included on the database unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances.

The Strategic Resourcing team in the Crown Prosecution Service will, on behalf of the vacancy holder, inform applicants when they are refused employment because of their inclusion in the Internal Fraud Database.

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 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 : Daisy Gabriel
• Email : daisy.gabriel1@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)E Head of Strategic Resourcing Opens in new window (docx, 56kB)