Overview:
Private Secretary to the Solicitor General and Deputy Head of Private Office for the Law Officers
An exciting and rare vacancy for a B3 has arisen in the Private Office for the Law Officers for Deputy Head of Private Office and Private Secretary to the Solicitor General.
The Private Office provides a full ministerial private office service to both the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General in both of their roles as Scottish Government Ministers and also as heads of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).
Working in a tight-knit team and working hand-in-glove with the Solicitor General, the successful candidate will lead a team of two B1s to lead on and manage all of the Solicitor General’s Scottish Government and Crown Office work seamlessly alongside the Lord Advocate’s team.
The role is very interesting, challenging, exciting, and will offer opportunities for the successful candidate to travel domestically and internationally with the Solicitor General.
Job description
This post is a full time post based in the Law Officers’ Private Office, 25 Chambers Street, Crown Office, Edinburgh.
Background on Law Officers
The Lord Advocate is a minister in the Scottish Government and has a range of functions associated with the maintenance of the rule of law and the proper administration of justice. The main components of the Lord Advocate’s role are:
- head of the systems of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths
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principal legal adviser to the Scottish Government
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representing the Scottish Government in civil proceedings
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representing the public interest in a range of statutory and common law civil and constitutional functions
The Lord Advocate is supported in her functions by the Solicitor General for Scotland. The Solicitor General is a Scottish Law Officer and also a minister in the Scottish Government. The Solicitor General supports the Lord Advocate in the exercise of the Lord Advocate’s functions, and may exercise, as required, their statutory and common law powers.
Role of Private Office
The private office acts as a channel for information between government ministers and government officials and are responsible for conveying the views of ministers and requesting advice and briefing on their behalf for both Law Officers for both their Crown Office and Government work.
The Law Officers’ Private Office staff require to have strong working relationships with the Law Officers (the Solicitor General and the Lord Advocate) and government officials. They also require to be responsive to working in a demanding and fast-paced office, managing high profile government and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) issues.
The Law Officers’ Private Office is a tight-knit team comprising of –
1 Private Secretary to the Lord Advocate (C1)
1 Deputy Private Secretary to the Lord Advocate (B2)
1 Private Secretary to the Solicitor General (B3)
4 Assistant Private Secretaries to the Law Officers (B1s)
The Private Secretary requires to be a highly-motivated self-starter with excellent interpersonal skills, willing to deliver a robust, resilient and first class private office service to the Law Officers.
Skills:
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Excellent communication skills – ability to relay succinct information to the Solicitor General and share her views and instructions accurately and swiftly to government ministers, the Scottish Government, COPFS officials and stakeholders.
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Create a strong and positive working relationship with the Solicitor General to ensure full trust and confidence exists between you both. Build positive and dependable relationships with the other members of the private office team.
Awareness and be responsive to the demands of a highly pressurised and high profile environment and demonstrate flexibility and proactiveness in your own approach, and that of the Solicitor General, to managing and quickly adapting you and the team’s working practices to achieve that. -
Ability to instantly identify and react to immediate and sensitive situations requiring the Solicitor General’s attention over the more routine work. Take forward appropriate matters on behalf of the Solicitor General without the need to refer them to the Solicitor General.
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Demonstrate initiative and insight and seek out further essential information from relevant officials and stakeholders in advance of alerting the Solicitor General to submissions/casework.
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Excellent administrative skills and good knowledge of MS Outlook, Word, Excel and eRDM/Objective is desirable.
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Good level of understanding of the functions of Scottish Government, awareness of the political environment and the scottish justice system.
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Requirement to work outside of normal business hours and be available to work evening, weekend and often public holidays as necessary. Our private office participate in on-call evening and weekend cover of Law Officers mailboxes. (This is on a rota basis and attracts an on-call allowance and overtime in accordance with Scottish Government policy).
Further information
This role requires the successful candidate to be based five days a week in the Crown Office at 25 Chambers Street in Edinburgh. There is no flexibility on the requirement to be physically present in the office.
Responsibilities:
Responsibilities of the Private Secretary to the Solicitor General:
- Provide oversight in proactively managing two separate ministerial inboxes (Scottish Government and COPFS) on behalf of the Solicitor General. Ensure accurate and timely advice/briefing is sought on behalf of the Solicitor General.
- Provide high quality professional guidance and support to allow the Solicitor General to achieve her ministerial responsibilities and key priorities.
- Provide a professional, resilient and at all times approachable approach with the Solicitor General and colleagues and stakeholders across the Scottish Government, COPFS, the wider Scottish legal system and members of the public.
- Requirement to handle and deal with extremely sensitive, and at times distressing, information with discretion and respect.
- Active planning and co-ordination around the Solicitor General’s varied and extensive workload and priorities involving ministerial submissions; COPFS criminal and death casework; internal and external engagements; and ministerial correspondence.
- Proactively utilise the Solicitor General’s time effectively ensuring appropriate time is set aside to allow the minister adequate preparation for meetings, court work and speaking engagements.
- Lead, manage and develop the Solicitor General’s team of staff (comprising two B1s) to provide successful delivery of team objectives and provide resilience across the team.
- Oversight of the management of all Ministerial Correspondence (MCS) received on behalf of the Law Officers.
- Demonstrate effective strong working relationships with officials at all levels within the Scottish and UK Governments, COPFS and the wider justice sector.
- Supporting the minister at external engagements and overseas visits ensuring necessary briefing has been provided in advance. Ensuring an accurate record is maintained of engagements and actions are taken forward quickly.
Competencies
Self awareness
People management
Communications and Engagement
Analysis and Use of Evidence
Essential Criteria & Qualifications:
No specific qualifications required.
Essential Criteria
1. Adaptable and embraces new ways of doing things, contributing ideas and energy to continuous improvement for Ministers, senior colleagues and your team.
2. Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to build supportive and collaborative alliances with Ministers, senior colleagues and your team.
3. Excellent oral and written communication skills that are crucial to achieving positive outcomes.
4. Collates and prioritises robust information from a variety of sources to support decision making at the most senior levels in government.
Minimum Time In Post
You will be expected to remain in post for a minimum of three years unless successful at gaining promotion to a higher Band or Grade.
In the event that further posts are required, a reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for up to 12 months.
How to Apply
To apply please fully complete the application and submit evidence based examples to demonstrate your knowledge/skills (300 words). Remember, your answers should be clear, concise and reflect what actions you undertook. You may want to use the STAR(R) approach to respond to each criterion.
For information on this post please contact Holly Garland by email at holly.garland@gov.scot
Additional information
For further information, please download and review the “Person Specification” and "Candidate Pack" which you will find below.
Person_Specification_Band_B_Updated_9.9.22_PDF
Private Sec Updated 11.05 - Candidate Pack
The Scottish Government is a diverse and inclusive workplace and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of assessment is used. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please let us know via ScottishGovernmentrecruitment@gov.scot
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