Victim and Survivor Participation Manager in the Office of the Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales (Ref: 23504)

Job summary

Please refer to Job Description

Job description

Victim and Survivor Participation Manager

Grade 7

Office of the Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales

The Victims' Commissioner is an independent statutory office established to promote the interests of victims and witnesses, encourage good practice and keep under review the operation of the Victims' Code. The Office of the Victims' Commissioner works with government, criminal justice agencies, victim support organisations and stakeholders to improve victims' experiences and outcomes across England and Wales.

The Victims’ Commissioner’s Office for England and Wales is establishing a victim and survivor panel for adult survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). The panel will provide a supportive, empowering and independent mechanism for adult victims and survivors to inform government policy and practice, helping to ensure survivor insight is reflected in policy and decision-making related to tackling CSAE across safeguarding, criminal justice and child protection systems. It will also play an important role in holding government to account on these issues.

The postholder will lead the day-to-day participation, facilitation and wraparound support model for the CSAE Victim and Survivor Advisory Panel. They will be responsible for ensuring that panel members are safeguarded, supported and able to participate confidently and meaningfully in government policy work.

This is a specialist role requiring strong experience of trauma-informed, survivor-centred working. The postholder will act as a key advocate for panel members, helping to elevate their voices, protect their wellbeing and ensure their expertise is treated with seriousness, respect and care.

Working closely with panel members, the wider Victims’ Commissioner’s Office, including the Commissioner herself, cross-government departments, and third sector partners, the postholder will coordinate a forward pipeline of engagement opportunities, support officials to prepare clear and appropriate briefs, facilitate sensitive engagement sessions, and maintain consistent feedback loops so that panel members can see how their insight has informed policy development and implementation.

Success in this role will mean ensuring that engagement is ethical, purposeful and capable of influencing policy. The postholder will be expected to uphold high standards of trauma-informed practice, challenge poorly prepared or inappropriate engagement where needed, champion equitable collaboration and help the panel operate safely, credibly and effectively throughout its term.

Terms:

This post is being offered on 2-year temporary appointment in line with the panel’s full term. This role may be extended subject to relevant approvals.

The terms on offer will be dependent on your current employment:

1. Staff within the Ministry of Justice will be posted on detached duty terms and Temporary Responsibility allowance if appropriate
2. Staff in HMPPS or another government department will be posted on Loan terms
3. Individuals who are not currently civil servants will be offered a Fixed Term Appointment.

If you wish to discuss the above options, should you be successful, please contact us via the following functional mailbox: PolicyGroupRecruitment@justice.gov.uk

Candidates are reminded that to be eligible for this campaign; you must still be employed as a civil servant at the point of accepting the role. If you resign or your FTA contract ends before you are made and accept an offer, you will become ineligible and you will be withdrawn from the process.

Location:

The Office of the Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales is recruiting nationally to fill this temporary role. We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your base location.

Whilst remote working for this role is available there is a requirement for occasional travel to 102 Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ.

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis with the option of compressed hours working.

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

Salary

Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.

The Role

The postholder will work to support panel members to engage fully with cross-government officials and ministers, in a way that feels safe and empowering and enables them to meaningfully contribute their voices to the design and development of policies to tackle CSAE.

We recognise the value that lived experience of child sexual abuse would bring to this role, although there is no expectation that applicants disclose personal experiences as part of the recruitment process.

Key Responsibilities

Safety, wellbeing and wraparound care

• Lead the implementation of a safe, trauma-informed participation model for the panel, ensuring safeguarding, wellbeing and psychological safety are built into all aspects of panel activity in line with the terms of reference.
• Deliver trauma-informed onboarding for panel members, ensuring they understand the panel’s purpose, ways of working, support offer, boundaries, safeguarding routes and what participation will involve.
• Act as the key point of contact for panel members, ensuring their safety needs, boundaries, accessibility requirements and wellbeing are understood and responded to appropriately. This includes providing regular check-ins and post-engagement debriefs so members are supported throughout their participation and have clear routes to raise concerns or feedback.
• Lead and hold accountability for thorough risk management and uphold support processes, including recording, escalation and review of safeguarding or wellbeing concerns.
• Work closely with the clinical support provider to ensure members have access to appropriate therapeutic and wellbeing support, and that risks or concerns are identified and managed safely appropriately.

Trauma-informed Facilitation and Policy Engagement

• Lead on a pipeline of panel engagement workstreams with government, working with the wider Victims’ Commissioner’s Office, Home Office and wider cross-government officials to identify where panel insight could add value and ensure activity is planned early enough to inform policy development and decision-making.
• Hold accountability for ensuring each engagement is clearly framed for both panel members and officials, including the purpose, questions, expectations, use of insight and feedback arrangements.
• Be responsible for preparing panel members before engagement activity, ensuring they have accessible information, clear expectations and the support needed to participate safely and meaningfully.
• Be responsible for ensuring engagement activity is accessible, inclusive and flexible, offering different ways for members to contribute so they can participate in a way that feels safe and appropriate to them, with adjustments made where needed.
• Lead on briefing and preparing officials, ministers and partners before engagement sessions, including on trauma-informed practice, safeguarding expectations, boundaries, sensitive language and feedback requirements.
• Manage session dynamics in a way that safeguards members, champions their expertise, and enables safe, honest and constructive discussion.

Governance

• Oversee implementation of the panel’s terms of reference, code of conduct, engagement principles and operating processes.
• Be accountable for maintaining clear records of key decisions, risks, support actions and governance issues to support accountability and effective oversight.
• Lead on working with the Home Office and wider government to ensure the panel is integrated into relevant governance and policy processes, with clear reporting and escalation routes.

System Leadership and Change

• Strengthen cross-government practice by promoting learning, guidance and training on safe, meaningful and trauma-informed engagement with victims and survivors.
• Encourage the OVC, Home Office, MoJ and wider sector partners to align activity, maximise impact and connect the panel with wider lived experience insight across its network of established lived experience forums.
• Identify barriers to meaningful survivor engagement across government and use panel learning to improve how policy teams involve victims and survivors.
• Position the panel as a model of good practice in survivor-centred engagement across government and the CSA sector.

Grant, Budget and Supplier Management

• Lead on management of the panel grant agreement, ensuring delivery remains aligned with agreed objectives, deliverables, funding conditions and the accompanying MoU.
• Monitor panel-related spend against budget, including member payments, accessibility costs, facilitation, clinical support, training and wider delivery costs.
• Oversee quarterly reporting in line with the grant agreement, ensuring progress, financial information, risks and issues are captured and escalated through agreed governance routes.
• Lead supplier management for services linked to panel delivery, including clinical support and training provision.

Monitoring, evaluation and continuous improvement

• Track delivery against agreed outcomes and KPIs, including engagement workstreams, member experience, policy influence, wellbeing and participation levels.
• Maintain an impact and learning log, capturing engagement activity, key insights, feedback returned, policy responses, resulting changes and areas for improvement.
• Manage regular feedback loops with panel members, officials and partners to understand what is working and where changes are needed.
• Lead on creating an annual impact and learning summary for panel members and government stakeholders.
• Use evidence from feedback, clinical input, facilitator insight, government feedback and emerging best practice to refine the participation model over time.

Media handling and communications

• Oversee development of panel-related communications, ensuring public-facing and stakeholder messages are accurate, sensitive and aligned with agreed positioning.
• Work alongside to the Victims’ Commissioner’s Head of Communications to triage and respond to media requests related to the Panel.

Line management

• Provide effective line management of the Network Engagement Lead for the Panel, supporting relationship building and engagement with a network of established victim and survivor forums and coordinating opportunities for wider lived experience engagement with government.

Person Specification

Essential criteria

• Knowledge and understanding of child sexual abuse, including its impact on victims and survivors and the importance of trauma-informed, survivor-centred approaches.
• Experience of trauma-informed, survivor-centred participation, including working with adult victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, sexual violence, domestic abuse, exploitation or related forms of trauma.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding, psychological safety and support needs in participation or engagement settings, including boundaries, risk management and conflict resolution.
• Experience designing, preparing and facilitating ethical engagement, ensuring people with lived experience can participate in ways that feel safe, accessible and meaningful to them.
• Ability to work with wide ranging senior stakeholders, including government or statutory partners, to support meaningful engagement, influence decision-making and challenge poor practice where needed.
• Ability to translate lived experience insight into clear themes, learning and practical recommendations for policy, practice or service improvement.
• Strong planning, communication and delivery skills, including managing a pipeline of activity, producing clear, accessible written materials, monitoring progress and using feedback to improve practice.
• Experience of grant management, budget monitoring, supplier management, quarterly reporting or delivery assurance.

Desirable criteria

• Relevant qualifications in safeguarding, social work, counselling, psychology or demonstrable sector-based experience.
• Experience developing guidance, training or capability-building materials on trauma-informed or survivor-centred engagement.
• Experience working with clinical support providers or specialist therapeutic services as part of a participation or engagement model.

Additional Information

• If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.
• Candidates applying from HMPPS should note that the Ministry of Justice does not have the same conditions of employment as HMPPS. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful.
• The MoJ is proud to be Level 3 Disability Confident. Disability Confident is the approach through which we offer guaranteed interviews for all people with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the advertised role as set out in the job description.

You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.

You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, including your CV, statement of suitability and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

Experience

You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process to assess any demonstrable experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to the role.

You will also be asked to upload a Statement of Suitability of no more than 750 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.

You will also be asked to provide a response to the following question in no more than 500 words:

• Please describe your experience of coordinating trauma-informed, lived experience engagement with victims and survivors. What was your role, approach and the outcomes?

Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview, testing experience, behaviours and strengths.

Candidates invited to Interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

At interview you will be assessed against the following Success Profiles:

Presentation:

The details of the presentation requirement will be sent to those candidates successful at the sift stage. It will be based on the Communicating and Influencing Behaviour.

Behaviours:

The following Behaviours will be tested at interview:

• Working Together
• Making effective decisions

It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model to explain:

• WHO - What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? Or
• STAR - What was the Situation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions?

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

Success Profiles: Civil Service behaviours - GOV.UK

Strengths:

It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this.

Further information on Civil Service Strengths can be found via this link Success Profiles: Strengths - GOV.UK

Experience:

As with your application the panel intend to ask an experience question at interview. No preparation is required for this.

Interview Timeline:

Interviews are expected to take place towards the end of November or Early December 2026.

Contact information

If you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team, please contact denise.pringle@victimscommissioner.org.uk

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Behaviours

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

• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £58,511, Ministry of Justice contributes £16,950 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).

• Access to learning and development
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• Annual Leave
• Public Holidays
• Season Ticket Advance

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) 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

Job contact :

• Name : SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team
• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk
• Telephone : 0345 241 5359

Recruitment team

• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…

https://jobs.justice.gov.uk/careers/JobDetail/23504?entityId=23504