Head of Legal Services and Policy

Job Purpose

As the most senior legal advisor to the SIA on all aspects of its role as a prosecutory, regulatory, corporate and public body, and as a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), to:

• Take ownership of legal areas including SIA criminal prosecutions, regulatory appeals and challenges, judicial review and inquests, commercial contracts, data protection and corporate governance matters, and regulatory policy matters, facilitating delivery of proficient and proactive expert advice to inform organisational decision making and risk management at all levels.
• Lead on the handling of significant or high risk legal and policy matters personally.
• Inspire the Legal Services and Policy Team at the SIA in their contribution to organisational objectives, enabling effective and efficient delivery of legal and policy services to all clients.
• Act as professional lead for the Legal profession at the SIA, as the most senior legal professional in the organisation, building the required legal and policy capability for the future.

Reporting Relationships

This role reports to the Director of Corporate Services.

As a member of the SIA’s Senior Leadership Team, the role holder is expected to work with SLT colleagues to ensure corporate objectives are delivered in a “joined up” way.

The role holder is responsible for the Legal Services and Policy Team. They have direct line management responsibility for three staff (two Principal Legal Advisers and a Principal Policy Adviser), and overall responsibility for a team of 13 staff, including solicitors/barristers, legal assistants, and policy professionals. They may also on occasion matrix manage other staff across the SIA involved in relevant projects and workstreams and will also work closely in a matrix way with relevant senior clients through shared services arrangements with other arms’ length bodies, as required.

The role holder is responsible for an annual budget of circa £1.5m, and is required to effectively manage this budget, which includes commercial contracts with external suppliers of legal services to support legal and policy activities for the SIA, and full-cost recovery arrangements for shared legal services provisions.

• To provide expert and timely legal and policy advice across all the SIA legal and policy functions to internal clients (and, where applicable, shared services clients) on relevant matters, including those that are complex, have significant legal, financial or confidence implications, or that may shape the future direction of the organisation. This includes providing risk based legal and policy advice to the board, Chair, and Chief Executive, as well as senior decision makers.
• To oversee the conduct and management of the SIA’s litigation portfolio including criminal prosecutions, proceeds of crime recovery, regulatory appeals, inquests, and judicial reviews, providing legal leadership on high profile and sensitive cases and ensuring high risk matters are handled soundly.
• To ensure there is an effective system of legal and policy risk reporting and monitoring in place.
• To ensure, through effective leadership and management of the team, the provision of high quality legal and policy advice to SIA colleagues (and, where appropriate, to other organisations through agreed shared services arrangements).
• To identify, develop and secure the capacity and capability requirements needed to drive and deliver future legal and policy objectives and manage these resources and the professional development of the team to meet organisational requirements.
• To provide expert advice and support where appropriate on commercial legal work, including assessing commercial contracts with external suppliers and other agreements.
• To manage supplier relationships and the instruction of external legal firms and external legal counsel carrying out work for the SIA (excluding employment law), ensuring value for money and that quality representation is secured.
• To horizon scan and provide advice on relevant UK legislation, regulations and case law that may impact the organisation’s statutory obligations and the wider private security industry, assessing and disseminating strategic impact analysis to the board and executive as necessary.
• To build constructive and influential senior working relationships with policy colleagues in relevant central government departments, to ensure that the SIA is able to discharge its statutory function to make recommendations and proposals for the maintenance and improvement of standards in the provision of security industry services and other services involving the activities of security operatives.
• To lead on the response to whistleblowing matters for the SIA and supporting the relevant executive director and non-executive director in discharging their roles.
• To make an active corporate contribution as part of the SIA’s Senior Leadership Team to organisational projects and initiatives as required.

1. Qualifications

Essential

• Applicants must be qualified to practise as a Solicitor, Barrister or Chartered Legal Executive in England and Wales and must hold a valid Practising Certificate for England and Wales or have full exemption from the relevant professional regulatory body (either the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Bar Standards Board). Barristers and Solicitors qualified in a jurisdiction outside of England and Wales will be subject to the rules of the professional bodies and must have completed the Bar Transfer Test or Qualified Lawyer Transfer Scheme.
• If you have qualified through CILEX you must hold a “general qualification” within the meaning of s71(3)(c) Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. If CILEX applies to you and you are not sure of your eligibility, you can contact us in order to establish your eligibility for this role, which will be in line with other UK government legal roles of this nature.

1. Skills and experience

Essential

• A strong track record of providing authoritative expert legal advice in a UK regulatory context, with significant practice experience in at least one of each of the following two areas:

• criminal investigation or enforcement, civil litigation, public law or regulatory law (such as judicial reviews and/or regulatory appeals); participation in and/or responding to inquests and/or public inquiries.
• commercial contracts; information law matters (such as data protection freedom of information, record management); corporate governance matters; regulatory policy matters.

• A high intellectual capacity and the ability to move between strategic thinking and technical detail across a broad range of complex legal and policy subject areas/projects.
• Significant senior management experience gained in a law firm or in house environment, with experience of leading well-respected teams.
• The ability to deliver in a demanding environment at pace, exercising sound judgment and a high level of personal integrity in providing timely legal and policy advice and constructive challenge.
• An experienced communicator and influencer, with the ability to proactively manage a variety of stakeholders up to and including board level, to ensure good relationships are maintained and successful organisational outcomes achieved.

• Evidence of sound management of resources and budgets to achieve high performing, value for money service delivery.

• Inclusive leadership skills, with a demonstrable commitment to developing and nurturing a high performing, diverse, inclusive, and talented team that delivers results and innovates within their specialisms.

Desirable

• An understanding of government policy making and the process for legislative or regulatory change.
• An interest in the private security industry and/or public protection, with an understanding of relevant policy context and legislation.
• Applied knowledge of corporate governance in the context of a non-departmental public body.

• In addition to the base salary, we provide a range of other benefits, including a generous pension scheme.

   

  • Pension scheme – You will be eligible to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme which is administered by MyCSP. Most of our permanent employees are in the Alpha scheme and the employee contribution rates, which are published on the intranet, are generally between60% and 7.35% dependent on pensionable earnings. In addition, the SIA pays between 26.60% and 30.30% into the Alpha scheme. Due to their length of service, some employees are in legacy Civil Service schemes which have similar contribution rates. There is also a partnership pension scheme available to you, which is a type of personal pension with employer contributions. You do not have to make any payments but if you do choose to contribute, the SIA will match your payments up to a further 3% of your pensionable salary and make age-related contributions. We can signpost you to advice on the most appropriate pension arrangements for you should you be successful in your application.
  • Leave entitlements – Annual leave entitlement will be 27.5 days, with pay rising by one additional day for every two years of service up to a maximum of 32.5 days. Should you work non-standard hours, these entitlements will be converted into hours and adjusted as appropriate. The organisation may, at its discretion, grant a period of up to 3 days paid leave to employees who undertake voluntary work, such a working for registered charities, hospices, etc.
  • Cycle to work – The cycle to work scheme is a tax and National Insurance free scheme set up by the Government to help promote healthier journeys to work and reduce pollution and congestion. At any time via the mylifestyle website, you can apply to hire and/or purchase a cycle and safety equipment to the value of between £100 and £1,000.
  • GymFlex – At any time, employees can apply for annual (corporate) gym membership via the mylifestyle website. The SIA will pay for membership upfront and the annual fee will be recovered by equal monthly instalments deducted from your salary over 12 months.
  • Discounts – MyDiscounts (on the mylifestyle website) gives employees access to a great range of discounts and savings on travel bookings, shopping vouchers, gift cards, cinema tickets and leisure activities. MyGym Discounts are also part of the range of discounts available.
  • Employee Assistance Programme – The employee assistance helpline offers employees and their family access to information, advice and counselling on a variety of personal and workplace issues. The service is provided by an external company and is completely confidential.
  • Employee development – The SIA supports continued learning and development in order that it has a focussed, flexible and capable workforce that can deliver and support its regulatory functions now and in the future. All training must offer benefit to the organisation as well as to the individual. Personal development plans are formally set and reviewed as part of the bi-annual appraisal process.
  • Flexible working – The SIA operates a variety of flexible working arrangements to help staff balance their work time with their outside commitments. These arrangements include compressed working hours, part-time working, home working, term time and flexitime. All requests for flexible working must be considered taking full account of departmental needs.

   

Job contact :

• Name : Niraj Thakkar
• Email : SIA@allenlane.co.uk
• Telephone : 07921336703

Recruitment team

• Email : SIA@allenlane.co.uk