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Job summary

Working in a team reporting to the Head of Legal (Commercial) you will be given a rare opportunity to develop your career, grow your expertise and undertake professional development with roles and projects that will accelerate housing delivery and create thriving places.

You will be joining our small, friendly and approachable team who are committed to providing first class legal advice to Homes England. The purpose of this role is to provide a proactive, professional legal service to Homes England in relation to a mixed caseload of transactional and governance advice relating to a range of commercial contracts.

Working with key internal and external stakeholders you will ensure efficient, consistent and effective provision of legal services and have the opportunity to help deliver the homes and places that our communities need, and to support the regeneration of our towns, cities and rural communities.

You should enjoy working in the transaction environment either directly offering advice or instructing external solicitors to ensure Homes England accesses the best advice.

From day one, you’ll be encouraged, challenged, supported, stretched and listened to. You’ll take ownership of projects to develop your skills and work with multi-disciplined teams where your advice matters and directly helps enable us to address the current housing market issues and help deliver the Agency’s mission to increase the delivery of new homes.

This is a rare chance to be part of a fast growing, national organisation with real social purpose.

Job description

Whilst our day job is to deliver first class customer service to our stakeholders, you will be used to "spinning several plates" at once and will always be looking for ways to improve and innovate.

As well as being experienced in commercial contracts; you’ll need real energy, be highly motivated and able to demonstrate your ability to work and succeed in an ever-changing and fast-paced environment.

You will be curious, adaptable, collaborative and commercially aware. Strong intellectual and analytical skills are important too and we will support you to develop your legal expertise making this role a particularly rare opportunity to have a blended commercial and public sector legal practice.

A positive attitude when faced with transaction-based challenges and problem solving will be essential qualities. Above all a proven and continuing commitment to offering high quality transactional experience will be essential.

Delivering on a mission as bold as ours isn’t always easy. You will be resilient and comfortable managing stakeholders at a senior level and your discussions will always be shaped by a good understanding of the commercial and operational impact of what we do as a legal team. You will enjoy working in an innovative, fun and engaging way and be able to negotiate and persuade.

As an experienced legal professional you’ll understand how to manage colleagues and be able to demonstrate you can work with others as part of a team in a collaborative, inclusive way.

Person specification

1. Essential: Solicitor with current practising certificate and experience in the following areas of law – commercial law and contracts.
2. Essential: Proven experience as a paralegal, with full cycle commercial contracts exposure
3. Essential: Good computer literacy (Word and Excel). Excellent administration skills. Ability to prioritise and work to strict timetable/deadlines.
4. Essential: Experience of identifying legal risk.
5. Essential: Understanding the role of an in-house lawyer.
6. Essential: Good written and verbal communications skills and negotiating skills with the ability to adapt communication styles by audience and influence stakeholders.
7. Essential: Experience of drafting of legal documentation and reports and advising on related legal issues.
8. Essential: Ability to explain legal issues in commercial contracts clearly.
9. Essential: Ability to manage heavy and varied workload.
10. Desirable: An understanding of some or all of the following areas - public procurement, information governance, intellectual property, IR35, statutory powers of public bodies, grant funding agreements, construction contracts.
11. Desirable: Working within a public sector body or in-house.

Benefits

Homes England is an executive non-departmental public body with its own terms and conditions, benefits and pension scheme. We are a government agency working in partnership with the private sector and want to employ and retain great people. In return we offer a range of excellent benefits, some of the key benefits include:

Holiday - Homes England offers all staff 33 days annual leave per year in addition to 8 statutory bank holidays.

Working Flexibly - At Homes England we have a strong culture of flexible working and encourage all employees to have a healthy work/life balance. We offer a wide range of potential working patterns, including part time, job share and compressed hours.

Health and Wellbeing - We offer health screening with Nuffield Proactive Health Clinics, a free Employee Assistance Programme which offers confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well as access to Occupational Health.

Professional Development - At Homes England we are committed to your continued professional and personal development with learning as one of our core values. We pay for one job-related professional membership subscription per year for our employees.

We also offer an excellent range of family friendly benefits, for example, maternity, paternity, shared parental leave.

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

How to apply?

To apply please follow the links to our careers page.

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Selection process details

For more information on the role, please see the attached Job Description.

Successful applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application and interviews held as soon as practical after the closing date. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in this role and Homes England.

Please note – Homes England has a responsibility to ensure compliance with HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard to address the potential problems of identity fraud, illegal working and deception generally. To ensure compliance we will carry out a pre-employment Personal Identity and Vetting Report through Experian to meet the standard and you will therefore be asked to provide certain information in order that the verification check can be carried out if you are successful in your application.

Homes England are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer that values and respects the people who work for us. Our aim is to be an employer of choice, enabling everyone to reach their full potential.

Homes England is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. For further information please refer to our Privacy Notice which can be viewed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/homes-england/about/personal-information-charter

Nationality requirements

Open to UK, Commonwealth and European Economic Area (EEA) and certain non EEA nationals. Further information on whether you are able to apply is available here.

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a guaranteed disability confident interview scheme for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Further information

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

Name: Recruitment Team

Email: recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk

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

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.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.

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

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 : Recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk
• Email : Recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentinfo@homesengland.gov.uk