Administrative Officer
Employer: Crown Prosecution Service
Location: Hybrid working - You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.
Locations available: Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Eastleigh, Exeter, Guildford, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Mold, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Sheffield, St Albans, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Truro, Wakefield, Warrington, York
Working hours: Flexible working, Full-time, Part-time
Salary: £23,800 per annum
Closing date: 11.55pm on Sunday 20 July 2025.
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Location
Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Eastleigh, Exeter, Guildford, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Mold, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Sheffield, St Albans, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Truro, Wakefield, Warrington, York
About the job
Job summary
The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible for delivering justice through the independent and effective prosecution of crime. As the principal prosecuting authority across England and Wales, our work is often emotionally challenging and complex. As such we employ over 7,000 individuals who think objectively, act professionally, show the upmost respect for others and continually strive for excellence.
We are looking for individuals who are committed to public service, making a difference in people’s lives and delivering justice. We are committed to delivering the highest standards in this complex and challenging field.
Are you interested in developing a career with real purpose? Start your career in an integral supporting role as an administrative officer with the Crown Prosecution Service.
As an administrative officer, you’re often the first point of contact dealing with enquiries and correspondence. You’re responsible for providing administrative support within your team, gaining insight into the important work of the Crown Prosecution Service along the way.
You are a professional delivering customer service to internal and external stakeholders.
You build on your skills – such as communication, quality checking and time management – to complete your work to a high standard to help achieve your team’s goals and objectives.
You must have excellent written, verbal and digital communication skills including knowledge of Microsoft 365 applications.
If we have a large number of applications, we may operate a longlist within this process by marking all candidates who meet the job criteria and invite those with the highest scores to interview. If we then still have any vacancies, we invite the next highest scoring candidates to interview. Please note, once all vacancies have been filled, the longlist will expire and candidates will be informed
Job description
As an administrative officer you provide vital support to departments across the organisation. You draft, monitor and record correspondence for your team, helping them to work effectively and efficiently. Your customer service helps to maintain positive relationships with criminal justice partners, external agencies and members of the public.
Your roles and responsibilities
You ensure that information coming through to your team is recorded accurately and dealt with appropriately.
You build and maintain good working relationships with external agencies and criminal justice partners to ensure the smooth operation of business.
You file papers, ensuring that existing filing systems are maintained and appropriately kept up to date.
You provide updates and answer queries from the public, the judiciary, other court and tribunal users and representatives of other agencies and organisations.
You provide administrative assistance and support to your team.
Find out more about what the role is like
Our regional teams
The Crown Prosecution Service works across England and Wales, with 14 regional teams prosecuting cases locally in the magistrates’ courts and Crown Court.
Each of these 14 regional teams are known as Crown Prosecution Service Areas – they are led by a chief crown prosecutor whose paralegal, casework and prosecution staff work closely with local police forces and other criminal justice partners to prepare and prosecute local cases.
CPS East Midlands - Nottingham and Leicester
CPS London - London North and South
CPS North West - Manchester and Preston
CPS Yorkshire & Humberside - Hull, Sheffield and Leeds
Casework Divisions
Central casework divisions in the Crown Prosecution Service deal with some of the most complex criminal cases we prosecute. Working closely with specialist investigators across the criminal justice system, these divisions prosecute offences including organised crime, fraud, terrorism, corporate manslaughter and economic crime on an international scale.
SEOCID (Serious, Economic, Organised, Crime and International directorate) - London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle
Headquarters
Headquarters is comprised of business support teams specialising in areas including finance, policy, and human resources. Your work supports our core business functions, ensuring we operate efficiently so that prosecution staff can continue their important work. You are a key point of contact within the unit, dealing with general enquiries and highlighting any issues that arise. You also draft correspondence and provide administrative support to the wider business.
People Function - National (All offices)
CPS Direct
CPS Direct is a national service that provides all police officers and other investigators across England and Wales with access to charging advice. We currently operate and deliver a service to the police 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. We have a dedicated team of senior legal managers, legal managers, out of hours prosecutors who deal with charging and provide the police with ‘real time’ advice on high priority/custody cases.
This area is advertising - Newcastle and York
As an administrative officer you’ll be assigned to either a regional team, central casework division or headquarters. This campaign will operate using locational merit lists, so depending on your location preference, you may be placed in any suitable team.
Person specification
To be eligible to apply for this opportunity, you must:
have excellent written, verbal and digital communication skills - including knowledge of Microsoft 365 applications
have an interest in criminal law and public service
You don’t need qualifications or legal experience for this role - a structured induction training plan is provided. Customer service skills are desirable but not required.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
Communicating and Influencing
Making Effective Decisions
Delivering at Pace
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £23,800, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £6,894 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
We’re passionate about ensuring that we're a top performing organisation and a great place to work. We're a committed equal opportunities employer, creating a culture where you can bring your whole self to work, and individuality is truly appreciated.
We want to ensure our employees can thrive at work and home, and offer a range of support to achieve a balance. This includes flexibility of working hours, flexibility to support caring responsibilities and a flexible approach to deployment. We offer a hybrid working policy. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.
This culture of inclusion is underpinned by our staff networks covering disability, faith and belief, LGBTQI+, race, social mobility alongside our mental health first aiders programme and wellbeing sessions.
The Crown Prosecution Service commits to offer its employees the following experience.
You can do impactful, purposeful work that’s making a difference to your local communities
You can learn and grow, with access to the right opportunities and resources
We care about your wellbeing
We want you to feel valued, trusted and included
We also offer the following benefits:
Civil Service contributory pension of up to 28.9%
25 days’ leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years
An extra privilege day to mark the King's birthday
Flexible working including flexitime, and a family-friendly approach to work
Maternity and shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay
£350 each year to spend on personal development
Access to season tickets, cycle to work loans and retail and leisure discounts
Wellbeing support including trained mental health first aiders and an employee assistance programme.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
Motivation (lead behaviour) - application and Interview
Delivering at Pace - Interview only
Making Effective Decisions – application only
Communicating and Influencing - application and interview
The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘Motivation’ first. If the standard on this behaviour isn’t met, the other behaviours won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.
Motivation – lead behaviour
We want to understand why you want to work in public service, law and the Crown Prosecution Service. The criteria for this will include but not be limited to the following -
Why you want to join the Crown Prosecution Service
Why you want to work in public service
Your interest in the criminal justice system
A strong focus on continuous learning and a willingness to progress your training and development
Awareness of the Crown Prosecution Service values and priorities – our latest strategy is available on our website: CPS 2025, The Crown Prosecution Service.
First stage - Application
After submitting the short application form, you’re invited to complete an online Civil Service Judgement Test. You must successfully complete the test to progress to the next stage.
We recommend you complete the online test within 24 to 48 hours to allow for any technical issues.
The closing date for the online test and application stage is 11.55pm on Sunday 20 July 2025.
When applying, you’re asked to provide some specific information about your motivation and skills, employment history, and qualification details in the application form.
You’re asked to respond to three behaviours in the personal statement section of your application form – in no more than 750 words– setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience demonstrate each core behaviour for this role. These are:
Motivation (lead behaviour)
Making Effective Decisions
Communicating and Influencing
You must address each of these behaviours in the personal statement section. Otherwise, your application will be turned down.
Second stage – interview
If you pass the first recruitment stage, you’re invited to an interview.
We provide full guidance and instructions about this stage of the process at the time. Interviews take place using Microsoft Teams between 25 August and 12 September 2025.
We ask that you note the dates that the interview and assessments are due to take place. However, these dates may be subject to change, and we can’t guarantee alternative interview dates.
Offer of employment
If we offer you a role, offers and pre-employment checks begin from 15 September 2025. It can take up to two weeks for all offers to be made.
Information sessions
We are holding a series of information sessions – these are live webchats where you can ask us any queries you may have about your application, the process or the roles. You can register here:
Wednesday 9th July - 1-2pm https://meetandengage.com/amcep4745
Wednesday 16th July – 1-2pm https://meetandengage.com/amcep59to
Strengths
Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the interview.
Accuracy
You must ensure that your application, including your behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
Other
This is a full-time post. However, requests for flexible, part-time working and job share are considered, bearing in mind the operational needs of the department.
This role is a mixture of home working and office working. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period in an office or another official workplace.
You must consider if the commute from your home to the office is a feasible distance to travel before making an application. If you’re successful, we will discuss hybrid working before you take up the post.
Clearance
If successful, you’re required to secure Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) clearance, and some areas of the business require you to have Security Check (SC) clearance. For SC clearance you need to have lived in the UK for 3 years out of the last 5 years and must currently be living within the UK. For both, you must have a current valid UK address. The clearance you need is confirmed when you’re offered the role.
If you’re invited to interview, you’re asked to complete the character enquiry form and nationality and immigration questionnaire.
If you’re an internal member of staff, you won’t need to do a DBS check as you already hold this clearance.
Reserve list
If you’re recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancy, you’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another role if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the reserve list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.
The areas currently recruiting for reserve list only are:
Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Eastleigh, Exeter, Guildford, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Mold, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Sheffield, St Albans, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Truro, Wakefield, Warrington.
Reasonable adjustments
Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service is about inclusion, embracing differences and ensuring our workforce truly reflects the communities we serve. We want you to feel that you belong and can thrive, whatever your background, identify or culture. As a Disability Confident employer, we're happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments and improve your recruitment experience. If you'd like any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process, let us know within your application or contact EarlyCareers@cps.gov.uk.
Fraud check
The Crown Prosecution Service provides a Fair Processing Notice to all new applicants after they’ve been successful at interview. These candidates are informed that, as one aspect of pre-employment screening, their personal details – name, National Insurance number and date of birth – are checked against the Insiders Threat Database. We won't employ anyone included on the database unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances.
Complaints
If you’re dissatisfied and want to make a complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page.
https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/civilservicerecruitmentcomplaints/
You can find the Civil Service Commission recruitment principles here
https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/
You can find the Civil Service nationality rules here
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules
Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website here
https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas
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
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 the Civil 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 :Early Careers recruitment team
Email :earlycareers@cps.gov.uk
Recruitment team
Email :earlycareers@cps.gov.uk
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