Support Officer; Portfolio Management Office - Legal Aid Agency

Contract Type

Permanent

Please note that unless currently employed by the Civil Service and earning more than the minimum above, you will be offered the minimum for the grade depending on location.

National (any LAA office). Open to all Civil Servants, but only apply for London, Cambridge and Brighton offices if currently LAA staff based there.

The Support Officer (Portfolio Management Office) performs a variety of activities to help achieve the project’s objectives. This role supports the Project Manager by operating project management processes and coordinating business management tasks and activities.

• Co‑coordinate governance and secretariat activity across the portfolio, including scheduling boards, issuing commissions, circulating papers, tracking deadlines and supporting sign‑off processes.
• Prepare and compile board packs and routine reporting by gathering updates and data from work streams, checking submissions for completeness, quality and alignment to agreed formats.
• Support meetings through accurate minute‑taking and by maintaining action, decision and follow‑up logs.
• Stakeholder engagement – manage professional relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders and serve as the lead contact for some external parties. Draft correspondence.
• Administer portfolio controls, including RAID logs, change requests, prioritisation actions and related governance records, ensuring updates are captured and escalations routed appropriately.
• Maintain governance repositories and portfolio records, ensuring effective document storage, naming conventions and version control.
• Manage PMO inboxes and enquiry routes, triaging requests, coordinating responses and providing timely guidance to delivery teams.
• Support reporting and performance monitoring by preparing clean, structured datasets, carrying out routine data quality checks and contributing to dashboards and first‑line analysis.
• Maintain forward looks, milestones and governance calendars, helping ensure the portfolio is well‑prepared for routine assurance and audit activity.
• Promote consistent PMO ways of working by supporting good information management, clear submissions and adherence to governance processes across the portfolio.
• Planning and scheduling – implement and maintain systems for effective planning and scheduling.
• Risks and issues management – manage potential risk areas, work with risk managers and escalating issues when necessary.
• Line management – may include line management of direct reports, HR and well‑being, development with a focus on coaching and mentoring, ensuring quality and standards of PPM are upheld.

• Governance coordination and secretariat delivery – experience coordinating boards and governance processes.
• Stakeholder management and communication – experience managing relationships, drafting correspondence and ensuring timely, accurate information flow.
• Organisation and workload management – strong organisational skills, able to manage competing priorities, maintain forward looks and meet deadlines.
• Able to use Microsoft Office tools.

• Information management and PMO tooling – experience using tools such as SharePoint, Excel, Power BI to manage repositories and support consistent PMO ways of working.
• Assurance and audit readiness support – experience supporting assurance processes.
• Process compliance and standards awareness – understanding of governance processes and supporting teams to follow agreed ways of working.

Annual leave: 25 days on appointment, rising to 30 days after five years’ service. Scheme to buy or sell up to three days leave each year.

Additional paid time off for public holidays and one privilege day. Leave for part‑time and job share posts calculated pro‑rata.

Pension:
Civil Service offers choice of pension schemes.

Training:
The Ministry of Justice offers extensive training and development opportunities.

Family‑friendly policies: options for reduced hours or job share.

Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and…