Specialist Prosecutor

Job summary

CPS Proceeds of Crime Division (CPS POCD) Specialist Prosecutors are experts in asset recovery work relating to the restraint and confiscation of assets, enforcement of confiscation orders and consideration of alternative solutions to cases such as civil recovery proceedings.

As a Specialist Prosecutor, you build, develop, and maintain operational relationships with local criminal justice partners and will be responsible for asset recovery litigation on the most complex and sensitive cases within the Division.

If you are invited to interview and do not meet the standard for the Specialist Prosecutor (Grade 7) role, you may be offered the Senior Crown Prosecutor (Grade 7) role in CPS POCD, should it be available. Alternatively, you may be placed on the reserve list for the Senior Crown Prosecutor 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 18 before starting in this role. The start date is expected to be 8-12 weeks after the application deadline.

If you would like to complete your assessment in Welsh, you must do this without the help of a translation service.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities

• Providing legal and practical advice to police officers and Financial Investigators with regard to money laundering investigations and prosecutions, restraint, confiscation, enforcement.
• Providing advice to prosecutors and caseworkers in CPS POCD and the aligned CPS Areas, offering support and guidance on asset recovery strategies.
• Developing, co-ordinating and providing training on the Proceeds of Crime Act and Money Laundering Regulations.
• Supporting advocates in all asset recovery hearings by drafting the appropriate applications, legal arguments, and other documentation in support of those hearings.
• Preparing Letters of Request (LORs) to foreign jurisdictions to ensure assets outside of the UK are located, restrained or enforced.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to:

• be a qualified practising solicitor or barrister holding a valid Practising Certificate for England and Wales.
• Have extensive experience of criminal litigation in the Crown Court with a breadth of exposure to complex cases, the law relating to disclosure, and the handling of sensitive information.
• Have confidence dealing with complex and voluminous numerical data.
• Have experience of drafting complex legal documents and conducting complex legal and factual analysis.
• Have experience dealing with expert evidence.
• Proven legal experience in all aspects of proceeds of crime work, with depth and breadth of exposure to complex proceeds of crime casework.

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

• A thorough and up to date knowledge of mutual legal assistance, relating to the preservation of assets and the enforcement of confiscation orders in both incoming and international requests.
• Experience of serious criminal casework.
• Experience of drafting briefings, delivering presentations and training.

Qualifications

Legally qualified: You must be a qualified solicitor or barrister able to obtain a valid Practising Certificate for England and Wales.

If you’re a CILEx lawyer, you must be a Fellow of CILEx and a CILEx Advocate/Litigator holding all three advocacy certificates providing you with a ‘general qualification’ within the meaning of s71(3)(c) Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. You must have a right of audience in relation to any class of proceedings in any part of the Senior Courts, or all proceedings in County Court or magistrates' courts, to meet the requirements for a Crown Prosecutor as specified by section 1 Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. If you don’t meet this definition, you’re not eligible to apply for this vacancy. If you’re unsure whether you have qualified through CILEx, contact us to establish your eligibility for this role.

Solicitors - You must hold a qualifying law degree or equivalent, have passed the Common Professional Examination or Graduate Diploma in Law and/or the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), have completed two years of qualifying work experience and be admitted to the roll of solicitors by the Solicitors Regulation Authority or have full exemption from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Barristers - You must hold a qualifying law degree (or Common Professional Examination or Graduate Diploma in Law), have completed the Bar Training/Practice Course (also known as the Bar Professional Training Course), been formally called to the Bar and successfully completed pupillage, or have full exemption from the Bar Standards Board.

We don’t accept equivalent qualifications. If you’re unsure about your eligibility contact reuben.kamalarajan@cps.gov.uk.

You must be a fully qualified solicitor or barrister at the point of application. If successful, we must receive your practising certificate as soon as possible. We won’t be able to progress pre-employment checks until we’ve received your practising certificate, and a deadline for this may be set in line with business need. If you’re able to meet these requirements by this date, you’re eligible to apply.

If there are any restrictions or special arrangements about your practising certificate, let us know by email as soon as possible.

If we find you don’t have any of these academic and professional qualifications, we will withdraw your offer of employment or terminate your contract

Memberships

You must have a valid practising certificate for England and Wales or be eligible to obtain a valid practising certificate issued from either the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Bar Standards Board.

If CILEx qualified, you must hold a ‘general qualification’ within the meaning of s.71 (3) (c) Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

Behaviours

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

• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £65,280, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £18,911 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 reuben.kamalarajan@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.

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, interview and assessment. These are expected to take place on the week commencing 30th March 2026.

Your interview takes place online through Microsoft Teams. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact reuben.kamalarajan@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.

Assessment

We ask you to complete an assessment as part of the recruitment process for this role.

Assessments are expected to take place on the 18th March 2026. We will provide details of the assessment on this date, you will then have 3 hours to complete and return your assessment for review.

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:

• Making effective decisions
• Communicating and influencing
• Managing a quality service

You also need to demonstrate the following experience/technical skills required for this role:

• Have extensive experience of criminal litigation in the Crown Court with a breadth of exposure to complex cases, the law relating to disclosure, and the handling of sensitive information.
• Have confidence dealing with complex and voluminous numerical data.
• Have experience of drafting complex legal documents and conducting complex legal and factual analysis.
• Have experience dealing with expert evidence.
• Proven legal experience in all aspects of proceeds of crime work, with depth and breadth of exposure to complex proceeds of crime casework.

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

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘making effective decisions’ 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.

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 7 in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 3 behaviours at interview / assessment stage

• Making effective decisions (Assessment and Interview)
• Communicating and influencing (Interview)
• Managing a quality service (Interview)

Essential Experience- assessed at interview and assessment

We understand interviews can be stressful, and we want to ensure you are able to best represent your skills, so the interview questions will be provided in advance, 3 days prior to your interview.

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, skills and qualification details 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.

Clearance

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

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form and nationality, immigration questionnaire and a 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 Clearance level, you have to be able to meet the residency requirement in the Cabinet Office guidance. For the Crown Prosecution Service they are:

• Security Clearance – 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’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another Specialist Prosecutor post in our Proceeds of Crime Division 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 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 : Reuben Kamalarajan
• Email : reuben.kamalarajan@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)Specialist Prosecutor - POC Opens in new window (docx, 44kB)