Legal Adviser; Grade 7, Perm, Liverpool/ Newport/ London

Job summary

• Do you want to work across the full spectrum of the charity sector?
• Do you want an interesting and varied workload?
• Do you want to work in a tight-knit high-quality legal team?

The Charity Commission is seeking a new lawyer to join Legal and Accountancy Services. This is an exciting opportunity to provide high impact legal advice on the Commission’s regulation of charities.

There are five specialist teams within Legal Services – Legal Compliance, Permissions and Information Law, Charitable Status, Legal Policy and Litigation, which operate as a tight peer group, guiding and supporting each other. This vacancy is in our Legal Compliance team but you may be required to move to another Legal Services team.

Legal Services enables charities to deliver their purposes by advising on whether entities are charities, use of the Commission’s extensive powers, compliance casework (including statutory inquiries), the permissions casework and the development of guidance. The team also advises the Commission on its use of data in relation in carrying out its functions and on responses to FOIA requests, SARs and ICO related casework and appeals.

Legal Policy helps to shape the development of the legal and regulatory framework for charities, and ensure the legal integrity of Commission policy proposals, guidance and operational projects. Additionally, Litigation undertakes advocacy on behalf of the Commission in a range of Courts and Tribunals.

You will support the Commission’s strategic aims and operational goals by providing high quality professional legal advice across the Commission and developing the casework teams.

Job description

The main things the successful candidate will be doing are:

• Providing accurate, proportionate, and pragmatic legal advice in a timely manner, using judgment innovation and versatility to advise.
• Assessing risk and advising on mitigation in highly sensitive and high-profile matters and policy areas, taking into account a rapidly changing environment.
• Ensuring that the Commission’s regulatory approach and operational projects are informed by and developed in accordance with the legal framework.
• Supporting the upskilling of colleagues across the Commission through the development of operational guidance and training delivery.
• Maintaining important relationships with clients and stakeholders in other directorates as well as engaging individually to consult and negotiate to achieve mutually acceptable solutions.

Person specification

The key skills and experience that you must have are:

Ability:

• Strong legal advice-giving skills. Excellent written and oral communication skills including ability to explain complex information tailored to the needs of the audience.
• Strong legal research and analytical skills including the ability to interpret and advise on unfamiliar areas of law. Ability to think strategically, and creatively, to understand legal issues in their wider context, to identify and assess risks to support effective decision making.
• Ability to plan and prioritise competing demands to ensure performance targets and deadlines are met.
• Ambassadorial skills to represent the legal function internally and externally.

Experience

• Applying one or more of the following:
• Charity law, information law, public administrative law, regulatory law
• Effectively managing a workload/task throughout its lifecycle.
• Delivering accurate, effective, and timely legal advice.
• Maintaining a professional approach when presented with a challenging discussion by understanding needs, managing expectations, and progressing issues to a constructive outcome.

Technical

• Qualified to practice as a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales
• Ability to handle data and information sensitively in accordance with the business procedures and the law.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office Applications.

Qualifications

Qualified to practice as a solicitor or barrister in England and Wales

Behaviours

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

• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,245, Charity Commission contributes £16,583 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

This is your chance to make a contribution that really matters and to make an impact in an organisation where your voice will be heard and your hard work noticed.

Watch this short video to find out more about us.

We operate a flexible hybrid working policy where office attendance is combined with at least 3 days homeworking per week dependent on role requirements.

We recognise everyone as an individual, accepting people for who they are and treating everyone fairly. We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring from all backgrounds and we aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We champion inclusion and wellbeing, aiming to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and has a sense of belonging.

We do not discriminate on the basis of culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

We offer access to the highly competitive Civil Service Pension Scheme (employer contributions of 28.97%), far more than in the private sector, and a flexible, family-friendly environment. Additionally, you can look forward to other great benefits via our ‘Perkbox’ and ‘Edenred’ schemes. These include everything from an interest-free season ticket loan and bicycle loan (after two months) to discounts on gym membership, cinema tickets and restaurants. Please see the attached Charity Commission benefits document.

A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30 days per year.

The Charity Commission’s operational ambition is to realise the Commission’s values of being an expert regulator that is fair, balanced, and independent, which works in a way that is supportive, collaborative, and innovative to achieve our ambitions. We want to develop our capability to regulate charities to realise this goal and meet our statutory and public duties to ensure that charity in England and Wales can deliver maximum benefit to society in a way that upholds its reputation in the eyes of the public.

Work at the Charity Commission and you’ll make a difference every day to:

• The 170,000 charities of all shapes and sizes that we regulate across England and Wales.
• The trustees we partner with and advise.
• The people and causes that benefit from the £10bn generously donated each year by the public.

Find out more about working for us here.

To note: Any move across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018 may have implications on an employee’s ability to carry on claiming childcare vouchers.

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 and Experience.

To apply for this post, you must complete the following:

• A blind CV setting out your Job History/Full Qualifications/Previous skill and experiences.
• A Personal Statement (maximum 1000 words) demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria for the role outlined on the Job Description.

At interview you will be assessed on your experience and the following behaviours:

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

You will also be asked to carry out a presentation at interview. This will be on a prepared topic and will assess your knowledge and experience.

Interview Arrangements

Interviews will be taking place on MS Teams.

The sift is due to take place on 07/04/2026

Interviews will be held on 16/04/2026

We will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates change. You will be provided with sufficient notice of the confirmed dates.

At the interview, the panel can then probe further and ask applicants to provide further specific examples that show how they best demonstrate their skills.

We reserve the right to raise the score required at any stage of the process to manage numbers.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment.

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Behaviours:

The distinguishing Behaviours (the required skills, knowledge, and behaviours) for this role are set out in the Civil Service Behaviours Framework 2018 (Success Profiles - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)) and should be referred to when making this application.

You are required, under the Behaviours approach, to describe how you have dealt with a specific situation.

You must give evidence of your knowledge, skills, and behaviours and how you have applied this, such as what you did or said and how you interacted with other people.

When you are giving your examples, do not spend too many words on description and background information. Avoid using general or unspecific statements. Instead say what the situation was, what you did, what your thought process was and what was the result.

This post is full time however those applicants who do or wish to work an alternative working pattern are welcome to apply. The preferred working pattern may or may not be available. You should discuss this with the vacancy holder.

Reasonable Adjustment:

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled persons, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via Charitycommissionrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
• Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at an interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Reserve Lists:

If we have more successful candidates than available vacancies, we will hold a 12-month reserve list as standard.

During that time, we may use the list to fill the same, or similar roles with closely matching essential criteria, without further testing of merit. Any appointments from the Reserve list will be made in strict merit order.

Applying:

We recognise everyone as an individual, accepting people for who they are and treating everyone fairly.

All applications for these vacancies must be made online. There are limited exceptions to this. Paper applications will only be considered if you have a disability that will prevent you from applying online. If this is the case, please email Charitycommissionrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Once you have submitted your application it cannot be amended; only submit your application when you have completely finished and answered all the relevant questions.

Please note that late applications will not be accepted.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Feedback

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : Jane McGarry
• Email : Recruitment@charitycommission.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : charitycommissionrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

The Charity Commission’s recruitment processes are underpinned by the Civil Service Commissioner’s Recruitment Principles, which outlines that selection for appointment is made on merit based on fair and open competition.
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the values in the Civil Service Code and/or if you feel the recruitment has been conducted in such a way that conflicts with the Civil Service Commissioner’s Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance hrselfservice@charitycommission.gov.uk.
If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web page here.

Attachments

Grade 7 Legal Advisor - Charity Law Job Description Opens in new window (pdf, 230kB)Grade 7 Legal Advisor - Charity Law Job Description PERM (Welsh) Opens in new window (pdf, 244kB)Benefits Opens in new window (pdf, 169kB)Benefits - Welsh Opens in new window (pdf, 170kB)