Senior Personal Assistant

Crown Prosecution Service

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in less than 2 weeks

Administration

Full time

£30,700 - £32,430 per year

Job summary

As a Senior Personal Assistant you provide administrative support to senior managers through the supply of relevant briefings and organisational backup to ensure that they are fully prepared to carry out their allocated duties. You liaise with CPS officials and other government departments and agencies on a range of issues as required. You provide advice to senior managers as to the protocols and approaches to be taken on various organisational and procedural issues. You act as the main liaison point for the senior manager (and their team as the occasion demands) with other government departments, agencies, various external organisations and the public.

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.

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:

Be 16 years or older.
Strong IT literacy skills in a digital working environment.
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.
Set deadlines for managers and collate responses.

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 £30,700, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £8,893 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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 Priya.Vickers@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 OGD / External - 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 These are expected to take place on the 9th of February 2026, on Microsoft teams.

A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact Priya.Vickers@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.

Personal statement

We ask you to complete a personal statement of no more than 1,250 words. You need to address the core behaviours for this role, which are:

Delivering at Pace - Lead Behaviour
Communicating and influencing
Making Effective Decisions
Working together

You also need to demonstrate the following experience required for this role in your personal statement:

Strong IT literacy skills in a digital working environment.
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.
Set deadlines for managers and collate responses.

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.

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

Interview

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against B1/EO in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 4 behaviours at interview / assessment stage

Delivering at Pace- application and interview.
Communicating and influencing. - application and interview
Making Effective Decisions- application and interview.
Working together – Application and Interview

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.

Strengths

Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the interview.

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.

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, for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form and nationality and immigration questionnaire (ALSO national security vetting form if SC/DV).

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.

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 Senior Personal Assistant post in Birmingham 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.

Feedback

We only provide feedback if you attend an interview or assessment.

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 https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/civilservicerecruitmentcomplaints/

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.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

Salary range

£30,700 - £32,430 per year