Staffordshire County Council is a modern, progressive, and forward-thinking authority that is ambitious and empowers its employees to be courageous and innovative in their approach.
Staffordshire Legal Services is a large in-house corporate legal team, offering a significant breadth of experience and expertise. We support and retain our lawyers, trainees and support staff by offering a wide variety of work, an extensive benefits package and offering training and mentoring to aide their progression. We want everyone to enjoy their work, and feel challenged and appreciated for what they do and to make a positive difference to the lives of the people of Staffordshire. People are often unaware that Legal Services support the Council to fulfil every function when delivering its agenda and priorities, in addition to the Staffordshire pension fund, and a wide range of external clients. This keeps the work interesting, challenging and often high value and high profile.
We genuinely recognise the benefit of achieving the right work life balance and our extensive package of benefits support this. Lots of organisations offer this however our staff survey reliably informs us that our work ethos truly delivers this. Our package includes a generous holiday entitlement, increasing significantly with service, and an additional annual leave purchase scheme. Flexible and term time only working, agile working, employee travel and entertainment discounts, a local government pension scheme, optional car lease scheme and a staff parking discount scheme. We also offer family friendly polices including maternity, adoption, paternity, and parental leave.
Due to growth in our work streams we have an exciting and unique opportunity for the right candidate to join legal services team. The candidate would be involved in a range of activities from day-to-day employment advice on; contentious and complex cases, change (including TUPE) and all aspects of the employment life cycle. They would be consulted on new/refreshed people policies and involved in informing approaches to new people initiatives, with the objective of ensuring that all legal aspects are considered, and that legislation and statutory guidance are adhered to, to avoid litigation where possible. Whilst an early resolution preventative approach is taken so far as possible, the candidate would also be involved in any Employment Tribunal work, liaising closely and working collaboratively with people services, from the initial receipt of a claim, to achieving an outcome and understanding any lessons learned.
The candidate will have demonstrable management experience as they will be responsible for growing and developing a team. They must be adept at building positive relationships with the client and wider team. They will be enthusiastic and have the scope and flexibility to lead and shape the team to meet the client’s specific objectives.
Main ResponsibilitiesResponsibilities will include:
- Completing all aspects of complex employment casework and representing the client department at all case related meetings and appropriate hearings/Tribunals
- Conducting advocacy in Tribunals on employment matters
- Building and supervising a team of employment experts to manage the client’s workstream
- Adherence to the Legal Services Unit’s quality standards (Lexcel) including time-recording in order to maintain professional standards.
- To undertake in-service training as required by the training plan and to facilitate in-service training of staff members/client department.
- To handle confidential data sensitively and securely in accordance with policy.
The Ideal CandidateWe are looking for a qualified Chartered Legal Executive, Solicitor or Barrister with:
- A comprehensive understanding of employment law
- An in-depth understanding of the work done by the public sector, although previous local government experience is not essential
- An ability to communicate clearly, confidently and effectively and build positive working relationships.
- Experience of leading a team and supervising and growing staff members
- Meticulous attention to detail
- Effective time management, prioritisation skills and an ability to work under the demands of competing pressures.
- An ability to delegate work in order to generate capacity.
Interviews: 25th January 2024
If you are unsure if your skills and experience are suitable for this role or for an informal chat please contact Sam Gibson, Deputy Legal Services Manager via email sam.gibson@staffordshire.gov.uk for a suitable time to be arranged.
About Staffordshire County CouncilWe are no ordinary county council:
Our Values:
The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively.
Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy:
We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future.
We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.
Our benefits:
We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.
In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire
Our recruitment process:
As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities
As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Silver Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to
Disability Confident.
