26.121 EO Legal Administrative Assistant

DBS has its own growing in-house legal team. This currently consists of 27 members of staff, including 13 qualified lawyers (solicitors and a barrister). The team supports DBS across all its key strategic outputs and delivers a full in-house legal service. This broad range of legal work includes the following:

• Barring appeals litigation in the Upper Tribunal
• Public law matters, including in-house advisory work and judicial review
• Civil litigation
• Operational and policy advice
• GDPR / Data Protection and Freedom of Information matters
• Commercial projects and disputes
• Corporate governance
• Employment matters

If you are ready for a new challenge, have an enthusiastic approach and enjoy working collaboratively with colleagues within the legal team and across the wider organisation, then we would be delighted to hear from you.

You will be joining the DBS Legal Services Team at an exciting time as it develops and grows. Our objective is to continue building and developing a Legal Team that is recognised and engaged as a crucial partner in the delivery of the DBS’ functions. You will work collaboratively and proactively with colleagues from various teams, building relationships and confidence in the Legal Services Team. This role will offer you varied, challenging, and rewarding work in a professional and fast-paced environment.

You will provide administrative support to the DBS Legal Services Team, including:

• Supporting the lawyers in the Team wherever possible
• Collating and reviewing documentation
• Drafting basic internal and external correspondence
• Assisting with the preparation of instructions to law firms/counsel
• Liaising with external advisers
• Engaging with DBS colleagues to ensure that advice queries are dealt with in a timely manner
• Maintaining and updating the Legal Case Management System, other data bases and spreadsheets
• Raising purchase orders and complying with financial processes for the provision of external legal services
• Checking invoices and ensuring payment is made in a timely manner
• Managing the data retention of files, and the process for the destruction of files
• Reviewing the Legal Services Team inbox and ensuring that matters are signposted to allocated lawyers

Work flexibly and undertake such other duties appropriate to the level of the post that may reasonably be required.

Resources

• The Job holder will have support from other members of the Legal Services Team

Accountability

• The Job holder will report directly to the Legal Support Officer and be supervised by individual lawyers in the Team

Other Information

The role is for a fixed term to cover maternity leave until the end of October 2027.

The role may require occasional travel between the Liverpool and Darlington DBS sites, with the possibility of overnight stays.

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)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

To apply for this role, please provide a CV along with a Personal Statement of no more than 500 words, outlining how your skills and experiences meet the requirements of the role. This should include all essential and desirable criteria and the key responsibilities. In addition, you will also be required to provide examples for the following behaviours, Managing a Quality Service, Seeing the Big Picture and Delivering at Pace.

For all candidates who are successful at the initial sifting stage, you will be invited to attend a behaviour based interview process. The interview will be conducted via MS Teams and will be separated into 2 parts:

Part 1: Practical exercise which you will be required to complete under timed supervision. This will be measured against the essential criteria. You will undertake this exercise prior to the interview at Part 2.

Part 2: Behaviour based MS Teams interview. This will be measured against the behaviours Managing a Quality Service, Seeing the Big Picture, and Delivering at Pace.

Probing questions will also be asked against essential criteria.

Advert closing date: 1st September 2026

Interviews will be conducted once the sift has been completed. Should there be a large number of applicants, the sift will initially be conducted on the C.V, Personal Statement and the lead behaviour, Managing a Quality Service.

Whilst we will endeavour to provide some flexibility with regard to dates wherever possible. It is unlikely that we will be able to offer an alternative date once an appointment has been scheduled.

Further Information:

To view the DBS Recruitment and On-boarding Privacy Notice, please click the link below:

DBS Recruitment and On-boarding Privacy Notice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

This privacy notice covers personal data collected during the recruitment, security clearance and on-boarding process.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.