Commitments and Legal Resources Advisor

G14 - Internal promotions will be aligned to the pay policy.

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential. In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

Job Purpose

To manage the legal resource requirements and to support the managing of Commitments which supports the select committee process for the hybrid Bill and/or other consenting regime. Working closely with internal stakeholders, Kings Counsel, Counsel’s clerks, DfT and Parliamentary Agents (PA’s) to establish a timely programme of legal and commitment.

About the Role

• Support the Rail Development strategy for the management of the project’s legal requests, through the ‘Hybrid bill Legal inbox’.
• Review requests for legal resource and decide on the most appropriate course of action (using in-house resources, external Parliamentary Agents, Counsel or DfT Legal), considering costs and requirements. Log all requests and the outcomes.
• Issue clear instructions for the legal request, to the appropriate persons/team, ensuring all appliable information is included, including the deadlines.
• Manage the ‘Hybrid bill Legal inbox’ to ensure sufficient use of the legal resource, and a timely response to all legal queries.
• Support the Senior Commitments & Systems Manager in monitoring and tracking of the budget for legal resources and reporting to DfT.
• Management of the Counsel Commitment Fee (CF) tracker to ensure accurate information for future CFs and accurate reporting to the DfT.
• Support the Senior Commitments & Systems Manager in discussions with the DfT and PAs regarding PA contract management and the management of Work Billing Numbers (WBNs).
• Track, and assist DfT in the approval of, invoices for PAs, and Counsel as required.
• Manage and lead on the maintenance and update of the Legal Resources procedure.
• Provide support for the Senior Evidence Manager by issuing the weekly Counsel Schedule, assisting with setting Commitment Fees, and providing cover when required for the issuing of instructions to Counsel.
• Assist in issuing commitments to beneficiaries.
• Provide administrative support on all tasks relating to the recording of undertakings and assurances including taking minutes and assisting in the use of any systems needed to record, report, manage and track compliance with undertakings and assurances.
• Assist in the preparation of the Register of Undertakings and Assurances for publication.

About You

Skills

• Communication skills including ability to draft succinctly and informatively to enable decision making within agreed governance structures, with a keen eye for detail.
• Ability in maintaining reports, for example regular progress reporting through dashboards and budget forecasts.
• Practical organisational skills, able to ensure progress is maintained within project timelines.
• Ability to prioritise and plan conflicting workloads and work under pressure.
• Ability to manage relationships across a variety of stakeholders, including Counsel, PA’s, DfT, technical teams and Petition Managers.
• Ability to record detailed information quickly and accurately.

Knowledge

• Knowledge of managing legal resources in a multi-disciplinary environment.
• Understanding the process of managing a Bill through Parliament.
• Understanding of legal processes associated with instructing legal resources.
• Understanding of managing budgets within a government organisation.

Type of Experience

• Experience of multi-disciplinary working, in a large organisation.
• Legal education background or demonstrable professional experience in legal sector/law firm.
• Experience of managing legal resources in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience of liaising with Parliamentary Agents and Kings Counsel.

We ask for a variety of detail in your online application, however we perform the first assessment of suitability for a role based solely on the information in your CV. In a further development of our efforts to create a more diverse workforce, your CV will be anonymised and personal information will be removed during the first stage of the application review. This removes bias from the process and makes it even more important that you attach an updated word version of your CV for each new application ensuring you include evidence directly related to the criteria in the job advert. Watch this video on how we remove bias in the recruitment process: Removing bias in the recruitment process - YouTube

Any applications received after the closing date will not be considered.