Procurement Lawyer
National Crime Agency
Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 27th October 2024
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About the job
Job summary
The advice provided by the department contributes directly to the disruption of serious and organised crime. The legal department (of approximately 60 people) is made up of the following teams:
- Commercial and Employment
- Financial Disruptions Litigation
- Data and Operational Advisory
- Disruptive Actions – Litigation
- Civil Litigation
The teams include solicitors and barristers from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of experience. The teams are supported by paralegals and business support staff
We are currently recruiting exceptional solicitors and barristers specialising in procurement law with strong and significant post qualification experience.
Job description
You will be part of the Commercial and Employment Law Team and will provide advice on procurement law to the NCA. The Commercial and Employment Law Team plays a crucial role in enabling the Agency to lawfully procure high quality and value for money goods, works and services.
**To be considered, you will need to successfully complete SC Enhanced clearance before commencing the role.**
Person specification
As an NCA officer in the legal team you will support the Agency’s mission to lead the fight against serious and organised crime. You will be expected to use your legal skills and judgement to contribute to the strategic direction of the NCA and shape the legislative landscape by providing specialist procurement law advice across all areas of the Agency. You will need to be able to think creatively to help manage legal risks that are often novel, complex and challenging.
Want to learn more about the role?
If you would like to find out more about the role and the application process, we will be holding virtual open evening via MS Teams on Thursday 17th October 2024, 18:00 - 19:00.
This event is by invitation only. If you would like to receive an invite, please click through the following link - (Invite request form). You will be asked for your name and email address. Please ensure you register your interest no later than 3 pm on Wednesday 16th October 2024. You will not be able to complete this form after this date and time.
Please see our Privacy Notice within the Important information document attached to this advert for details on how your data is handled.
Qualifications
To apply for this role you must be a Solicitor or Barrister qualified to practise in England and Wales or Northern Ireland with strong and significant post qualification procurement law experience. Strong and significant post qualification procurement law experience will be assessed via your CV please ensure your CV is tailored accordingly.
Upon appointment, Barristers and Solicitors qualified in Northern Ireland will be registered by the NCA with their respective professional bodies in England & Wales, to enable them to practise in both jurisdictions.
Please ensure the dates of any accreditations you are relying on, are entered on to the CV.
Should you progress to the assessment stage of the process, you will be required to provide a copy of the original certificate.
Failure to provide evidence at interview may result in your application not progressing to the next stage.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Making Effective Decisions
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Significant and strong procurement law experience.
- Legal professional skills – Sound understanding of public law, reliable judgement and appreciation of legal risk. The ability to think strategically and creatively, seeing legal issues in their wider context and advising accordingly.
Benefits
All officers in the NCA are members of the UK Civil Service. You will be eligible for:
- Civil Service pension scheme
- 26 days annual leave rising to 31 on completion of 5 years continuous service
- If qualifying criteria is met new joiners to the NCA from UK Police Forces or UKIC will have service with those employers taken into account for continuous service purposes for Annual Leave entitlement only, this will be up to a maximum of 31 days leave (including 1 privilege day).
- Training and development opportunities
- Special leave
- Flexible working and family friendly policies
- Cycle to work scheme
- Blue Light scheme
For further details on benefits please visit https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/careers/benefits-and-support
Things you need to know
Selection process details
If you wish to apply for this vacancy, you must submit your application by 23:55 on Sunday 27th October 2024.
You will be asked to complete a CV as part of the application process. Your CV should set out your career history including training and qualifications, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure that each entry of your career history also has a few sentences outlining a description and the key elements of that role, and that you provide reasons for any gaps within the last two years. Please ensure the dates of any accreditations you are relying on are entered onto the CV.
- CV which will assess - Significant and strong procurement law experience.
- 250 word Personal Statement – to demonstrate how you meet the following criteria – Legal professional skills – Sound understanding of public law, reliable judgement and appreciation of legal risk. The ability to think strategically and creatively, seeing legal issues in their wider context and advising accordingly.
For further application guidance please visit https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/careers/applying-and-onboarding
Once submitted your application will be acknowledged by the Government Recruitment Service.
Please note depending on the volume of applications a Longlist at sift may be conducted on following criteria:
- Significant procurement law experience (based on content of CV)
Candidates must pass this criteria for their application to be progressed.
A panel will then assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit for the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the criteria set out in the Entry Criteria section.
Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application.
Sift results are expected to be released w/c Monday 11th November 2024.
Interview Details
If successful at sift stage, you will then be asked to attend a role play assessment and interview in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence.
For the assessment, you will be provided with a scenario and will have one hour to prepare your response. You will then be asked to present your advice verbally to the client (role player) and to respond to any questions or challenges in relation to that advice, which will take approximately 15 minutes. This will assess the following behaviours and technical criteria:
Behaviour - Seeing the Big Picture and Communicating and Influencing
Technical - Significant and strong procurement law experience
This will then be followed by approximately 45 minutes of interview questions to assess the following criteria:
Making Effective Decisions
Communicating and Influencing
Delivering at Pace
Legal Professional Skills - Sound understanding of public law, reliable judgement and appreciation of legal risk. The ability to think strategically and creatively, seeing legal issues in their wider context and advising accordingly.
Interviews will take place w/c Monday 25th November 2024 - locations to be confirmed. Please be advised that the type of interview (eg. virtual/face-to-face) may be subject to change and successful candidates will be notified of this prior to attending. However the interview is conducted, the interview criteria will remain as detailed within this advert.
The above sift and interview dates are an indicative timeline.
Should you be successful at sift but cannot attend on the interview date(s) listed the recruitment team cannot guarantee an alternative date. Please contact the recruitment team.
Full details of the assessment process will be made available to shortlisted candidates.
Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Any instances of plagiarism including copying of examples/answers from internet sources will result in a withdrawal of your application. Further action, including disciplinary action, may be considered in such cases involving internal candidates. Providing false or misleading information would be contrary to the core values of honesty and integrity expected of all Civil Servants.
Interview Outcome
Candidates will be alerted of the outcome of their interview via their CS Jobs Portal. We will be retaining a candidate pool of successful applicants to draw from as vacancies arise for up to 12 months.
If your application is successful and we are unable to offer you a post immediately, you will be invited to join our reserve list. If over the next 12 months we are able to offer you a position, we will contact you as soon as possible.
Once we make you an offer you will then go through our vetting and pre-employment checks processes.
All Appointments will be made in location merit order.
Internal Applicants
Successful applicants currently employed by NCA for this post may request to remain in their current contractual location. This should be discussed and agreed prior to proceeding with pre-employment checks. Please note this is dependant on business needs, please commence discussions with the hiring manager at the earliest opportunity.
Multi-Location
Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be appointed in merit order for each location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
Please be aware that you can be posted to any location that you put in your preferences. If you would only like to be posted to one location, please confirm one location only. If you are posted to a location that you have requested and you do not accept that location, you may not be offered another role.
Please note, only advertised location can be offered. Notes populated in a free text box will not be taken into consideration.
Hybrid Working
Here at the NCA we have a hybrid working arrangement in place enabling officers to work a proportion of their role remotely. Eligibility and the degree of home working will vary depending on the requirements of the role. Further details can be discussed at offer stage.
Reasonable Adjustment
We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. As part of our application process you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process that you may need. If you have a disability or long-term condition (a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long term effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via ncarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the ‘Assistance required’ section in the ‘Additional requirements’ page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Inclusion and Accessibility
We are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we are committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process. For details of the available group please visit https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/careers/benefits-and-support
In order to monitor the effectiveness of the National Crime Agency’s Diversity & Inclusion strategy, the NCA require certain personal details about you on submission of your application. Please note that this will be treated in confidence and will not impact your application. You will be asked to complete an E-consent survey asking for permission to share this data with the NCA to be used for statistical/monitoring purposes only, refusal of consent to share the information will not impact your application.
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact ncarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Additional Information
- The NCA is a 24/7 organisation, and working patterns must support business requirements. Some roles may require you to respond at short notice or outside of core hours.
- Individuals will be required to undertake and pass a substance misuse test as part of pre-employment checks.
- Successful candidates may be required to undertake a medical. If required, the medical will take place in either London or Warrington. Unfortunately, travel costs will not be reimbursed.
- If you are an internal candidate who has passed interview but is undergoing an internal investigation or have a written warning in place preventing a post move you may not be able to be posted until this investigation is concluded or restriction lifted. You will remain on the reserve list for a max of 12 months
- This role is being advertised on a permanent basis. If preferable, Loan or Secondment options will also be available for existing Civil Servants (Loan) and applicants from accredited NDPBs or any other employer (Secondment). Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.
VETTING REQUIREMENTS SC
All security clearances require you to provide evidence of your UK footprint where you have been physically present in the UK.
The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years.
Failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected.
If you require SC clearance you will need to provide evidence of the below requirements.
Checks will be made against:
- Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
- UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
- Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
- Security Services records
For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the following page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demystifying-vetting
We encourage all candidates to visit the NCA careers page for further information please visit https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/careers
If you have any specific queries about the role that are not covered above please contact: ncarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Medical
Nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
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).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : NCA Recruitment Team - GRS
- Email : ncarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : ncarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitment-complaints/
