Contents Location About the job Benefits Things you need to know Apply and further information Location Bristol, Croydon, Leeds, Manchester, Stratford About the job Job summary This role leads the VAT and Environmental Taxes Legal Advisers team. The team provide advice and legal support to HMRC policy and operational clients, as well as indirectly supporting HM Treasury colleagues and Ministers across the following work areas: Value Added Tax including advising on the implementation of the VAT elements of the Windsor Framework in Northern Ireland. Insurance Premium tax Environmental Taxes Aggregates Levy, Air Passenger Duty, the new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Climate Change Levy, Fuel Duty, Landfill Tax, Plastic Packaging Tax and Soft Drinks Industry Levy. The team of around 20 lawyers is managed by four grade six mini-team leaders who manages a mix of specialist lawyers and senior lawyers. The team are based in Croydon, Stratford (London) and Manchester. The work is fascinating and as well as black-letter law, requires engagement with policy, political and operational considerations. Your work will regularly hit the headlines with impacts to the Exchequer of billions of pounds. The role holder will need to demonstrate either relevant tax experience and skills, or excellent public law knowledge and skills (candidates who can demonstrate both will score more highly), and the ability to oversee the delivery of fast-paced, practical risk-based advice, while contributing as part of the directorate leadership team to enterprise leadership. Work areas include policy development, advising on large tax cases and legislative drafting. The team works closely with other advisory teams and with litigation counterparts. It is a high performing team which received excellent feedback in the recent internal stakeholder survey and from team members in the People Survey. Job description Key Responsibilities To lead the provision of timely, high quality, risk-based legal advice and legislative work, forming and managing highly effective working relationships with key stakeholders in HMRC and externally (including HM Treasury and Office of the Parliamentary Counsel) To oversee the allocation of work and resources to ensure effective delivery within available funding, meeting changing needs through accurate management and reporting. To provide inspiring, confident, and empowering leadership that is inclusive, supporting staff to improve their skills and performance, and offering support to career development. To contribute proactively to developing and sharing legal knowledge and capability and best practice across the team, HMRC Legal Group, HMRC and wider government stakeholders. To contribute to the effective management and development of the Business Tax & International Directorate and the wider corporate leadership of HMRC Legal Group. Key Interactions The post-holder will co-lead a team of around 20 lawyers and one trainee based across 3 sites Other HMRC Legal Group colleagues, including litigation and advisory Clients / colleagues in wider HMRC Government Legal Department Other Government Departments. Person specification We are seeking an experienced legal professional and leader. We want to hear from candidates with a real passion for public law and the key role that this plays within a large, complex and high-profile national body. The successful applicant will need to demonstrate relevant experience and effective delivery of the following essential criteria. Essential Criteria: Must be qualified as a Solicitor or Barrister and be able to practise in England and Wales Excellent legal professional skills including either relevant tax experience and skills, or excellent public law knowledge and skills (candidates who can demonstrate both will score more highly) The ability to think creatively and give authoritative risk-based legal direction that facilitates practical solutions Strong leadership skills with experience of creating and leading diverse and inclusive teams and an ability to motivate, inspire and guide others The ability to work collaboratively to understand diverse customer needs in order to deliver high quality and efficient legal services Demonstrable ability to work collaboratively with other senior leaders (across HMRC Legal Group, HMRC, GLD and external stakeholders) Desirable criteria: Experience in delivering legal services within a government or wider public sector context Benefits Alongside your salary of £76,000, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £22,017 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. As a Civil Service employee, youll be entitled to a large range of benefits. This includes: 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years service. This is in addition to your public holidays. This will be complemented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the Kings Birthday. Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle. Flexible working patterns and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours. A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join and where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension. Your contribution comes out of your salary before any tax is taken and will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire. Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers. Use of onsite facilities (where applicable). Occupational sick pay. Things you need to know Selection process details Application: To apply for this post, you will need to complete an online application by submitting the following: A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. A Statement of Suitability explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the criteria in the person specification. Your CV and Statement of Suitability should reflect your most relevant and recent skills and experience in relation to the role. Therefore, we recommend that each document is no more than two A4 pages long. By not submitting a CV and a Statement of Suitability will mean we only have limited information to assess your application against the person specification. Please ensure both documents contain your full name. Shortlist An application pre-sift will be conducted by the SCS Recruitment Team followed by an in-depth review by the Vacancy Holder and Panel. The panel will assess and select applicants who demonstrate the best fit with the role by considering the evidence provided against the criteria set out in the Person Specification. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application. The closing date for applications is Monday 17th February 2025 and a shortlist decision is expected to be made by week commencing 3rd March 2025. All candidates will be notified of the outcome shortly afterwards. All Criminal Record Checks applications are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise. As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). 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 : Sarah Hawes Email : scs.resourcinghmrc.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : scs.resourcinghmrc.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commissions Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly with the department concerned. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/ Attachments DD VAT and Environmental Taxes Legal Advisers - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 1243kB) Share this page Print Email Gmail Facebook LinkedIn