The Ministry of Justice is setting up a new probation and reoffending directorate to bring policy work on the two areas closer together and respond to growing demand for the two services.
The directorate will provide “significant policy input” to deliver justice secretary Shabana Mahmood’s priority of using technology solutions to manage offenders in the community, according to a job advert for a director to lead the team.
The MoJ is offering a salary of up to £100,000 for the director, who will lead the MoJ’s work on probation policy and on community and reoffending policy.
Its early objectives will include working with HM Prison and Probation Service to develop and deliver the MoJ’s probation policy response to the independent sentencing review, led by former justice secretary David Gauke.
The final report of the review, published last month, called for greater investment in the Probation Service to boost its “capacity and resilience” in the face of proposed reforms to shorten sentences for some categories of offender and reduce the number of people behind bars. The review noted that locking up fewer criminals will “place a greater burden on a probation system that is already under great strain”.
The director will be responsible for ensuring the directorate is staffed with “high-quality colleagues”. They will report to the director general of policy – prisons, offenders and analysis and will manage three deputy directors working on probation policy, community and reoffending policy and the reducing reoffending analysis division.
Writing in the candidate pack, director general Ross Gribbin said the job on offer is an “extraordinarily varied and interesting” one.
“You will represent the lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice and resolve the most urgent policy issues within and beyond the department. You will provide strong, strategic, and inspiring leadership for your team, and secure the confidence of ministers and officials across the department and wider government,” he wrote.
“You will be joining a great team and working on some of the most complex and important issues that make lives better for the citizens we serve.”
The directorate will sit within the MoJ’s Policy Group, which is responsible for setting and advising on policy ranging from criminal, civil, family and administrative justice to the UK’s domestic human rights framework and international obligations. The group also supports the justice secretary in their constitutional relationship with the judiciary and oversees the constitutional relationship between the UK and the crown dependencies.
The successful candidate director will “play an active role” in the Policy Group’s leadership and champion diversity and inclusion and wellbeing, according to the job ad.
Applications for the director job close on 15 June.