Community Payback supervisor

Ministry of Justice; Cardiff; Hybrid; GBP 25,000 - 31,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Training and development

Flexible working policies

Job summary

Ministry of Justice is seeking a Community Payback Supervisor to lead small teams on unpaid work projects across local communities. You will supervise offenders, coordinate with partner organisations, and ensure tasks are completed to a high standard.

The role requires excellent people and communication skills, a valid UK driving licence, and openness to weekend work and Hy bri d arrangements. Salary starts at £28,064 with potential pay progression.

Qualifications

• Excellent people and communication skills.
• The confidence to lead, motivate and supervise groups.
• A full UK manual driving licence to drive Community Payback minibuses, transport equipment and travel to project sites.
• Experience in painting, carpentry, gardening, grounds maintenance, construction, landscaping or other relevant activities is welcome.

Responsibilities

• Supervise and support offender groups on unpaid work projects.
• Lead small teams to complete manual tasks across diverse community projects.
• Coordinate with internal departments and partner organisations to share information.
• Ensure safety standards and quality of work on site.

Skills

Leadership

Team supervision

Communication skills

Driving licence

Job description

The working pattern for this role will be 37 hours per week to be worked over 4 days and will include weekends. Please note that all salaries are as advertised and are non‑negotiable, for new starters joining the service you will commence at the bottom of the scale. If you have any concerns regarding the salary range, please ensure these are raised during the interview process. Make a Meaningful Impact Every Day Are you looking for a role where your leadership can truly change lives and strengthen communities. As a Community Payback Supervisor, you'll play a vital part in helping people on probation rebuild their futures while delivering visible improvements across local areas. This is a hands on, people focused role where you'll supervise and support individuals completing unpaid work as part of their unpaid work sentence. Through your guidance, they'll gain valuable skills, experience a sense of purpose, and contribute to projects that benefit the wider public helping to reduce reoffending and aid rehabilitation. You'll lead teams working on a wide range of community-based projects, including:

• Landscaping and gardening
• Sports pitch maintenance
• Cooking and food preparation
• Woodland preservation
• Public Park and coastal pathway maintenance
• Church and sports club renovation
• Painting and decorating
• Flood prevention and public area maintenance and improvements
• Small building work
• Beach surveys
• Supporting hospitals and residential homes
• Manufacturing garden furniture and other items
• Grow plants and vegetables on allotments
• Work in partnership with local and National Charities

In addition to practical supervision, basic IT skills are essential to ensure clear communication between internal departments, partner organisations, and beneficiaries. Accurate and timely information sharing helps maintain safety, track progress, and deliver a joined‑up service that supports rehabilitation and community confidence. Every project is an opportunity to make a positive difference whether it's restoring a local green space, helping maintain vital public facilities, or giving someone the tools to turn their life around.

If you are successful in the recruitment process to join the Probation Service, your starting salary will be £28,064.

On a typical day, you'll spend up to 7 hours supervising a group at a Community Payback unpaid work placement. Post holders may be required to undertake weekend working as part of their normal pattern of working.

The Community Payback supervisor role is accommodated to people on probation who work or have caring responsibilities. Community Payback projects run 7 days a week therefore you will work frequent weekends, and you may be asked to cover some evenings. You will be paid a higher rate of 50% for weekend days you do work.

In this role, the pace of our work means that rest breaks don't always happen in the standard way. When this happens, we make sure your wellbeing is looked after. Your wellbeing really matters to us, so we want to be open about this from the outset. If you're someone who enjoys a varied, active role where no two days are the same, this is a great environment to make a real difference while being fully supported.

The Probation Service offers the opportunity for annual pay progression through a Competency Based Framework (CBF), which if eligible, will see your pay increase. CBF is designed to enable you to move up through the pay band range as your competence grows. New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band. Probation Service also increase their pay band ranges annually in line with Civil Service Pay guidance, which will also apply an increase to band pay ranges where applicable.

Overview of the job

This is an operational role directly supervising work groups of offenders serving a community sentence. This may include driving service vehicles to transport people or equipment. The post holder will be responsible for all work site supervision tasks and will work with service users to ensure that all tasks are carried out to the best of their ability. This will include working alongside people to demonstrate good practice as necessary. For further information on the summary, responsibilities, activities, duties of the role and the Civil Service Success Profile Criteria which will be used in the assessment process, please refer to the full Job Description Attachment.

Right to work in the UK

You must have the right to work in the UK and Civil Service (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules). Skilled Worker visa changes from 22 July 2025 In accordance with current immigration rules, this role is not eligible for a new Skilled Worker visa. From 22 July 2025, the Government introduced changes to the eligibility criteria for Skilled Worker visas. As a result: HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) cannot consider sponsoring you to work as a community payback supervisor unless you have held a Skilled Worker visa prior to the 22 July 2025 changes. If you have held a Skilled Worker visa continuously, please raise this during your pre‑employment checks and your eligibility will be assessed in accordance with the immigration rules and transitional provisions in place. If you apply to be a community payback supervisor and you have not held a Skilled Worker visa prior to 22 July 2025, you will need to consider your options for obtaining and/or maintaining your right to work in the UK in light of these changes. If your application is successful, you will need to ensure that you have and maintain the legal right to live and work in the Civil Service and in the United Kingdom. HMPPS will continue to comply with UK Immigration Rules applied in the UK and Civil Service. You can read more about Skilled Worker visas and the eligibility criteria here.

Civil Service recruitment: nationality rules Civil Service This guide is intended to assist departments with managing their responsibilities on nationality rules related to Civil Service recruitment. You can read more about Skilled Worker visas and the eligibility criteria here (https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa), Your application will be sifted once the application deadline has closed. You will then receive further instruction on the progress and outcome of your application.

Take a look at a short video about Community Payback Supervisor here: https://vimeo.com/663030374?fl=pl&fe=sh If we receive a high volume of applications, we may assess and progress candidates through the recruitment process in stages (tranches). Candidates who meet the required standard at sift may be held pending future assessment stages rather than progressing immediately. Interview invitations and subsequent offers will be managed in line with the tranche in which candidates are assessed and their position in merit order If you apply for multiple vacancies for the same role, only one of your applications will be progressed. Any assessment scores achieved will be applied consistently across all applications for that role, this will be valid for 6 months. Candidates who do not meet the minimum benchmark at either the Sift or Interview stage will not be eligible to reapply for the same role for six months from the date their assessment scores are progressed. There is also no guarantee that you will progress to the next stage of the recruitment process; however, we will keep you informed at each stage.

About the role

Community Payback Supervisors will work with a diverse mix of individuals, so it's important that you're empathetic, a good communicator and happy to take the lead. It's all about supporting offenders on their journey and making your community a better place. Whether that's building benches or cleaning the streets, you're there because you genuinely want to help people. As a Community Payback supervisor, you'll be at the heart of this work, leading small teams to complete their unpaid work hours. You'll supervise and motivate them to complete a range of manual tasks to pay back for the harm they've caused. These tasks could include clearing overgrowth to make public spaces safer, restoring community facilities such as sports halls and playgrounds, planting trees or laying flowerbeds, and litter picking and graffiti removal.

About you

• Excellent people and communication skills
• The confidence to lead, motivate and supervise groups
• A full UK manual driving licence to drive Community Payback minibuses, transport equipment and travel to project sites
• Got practical skills or a trade? Even better. We'd particularly welcome applicants with experience in areas such as painting and decorating, carpentry, gardening, grounds maintenance, construction, landscaping or general maintenance. This is a hands‑on role where you'll help people on probation make a positive contribution to their local communities while developing skills and work habits that support rehabilitation.
• You may draw on experience from any setting, including employment, the Armed Forces, voluntary work, education, community projects, construction, maintenance, landscaping or other relevant activities.

Additional Information

Where applicants provide multiple location preferences, reserve lists will be managed in accordance with location preference/s, as indicated in your application. We will appoint in merit list order for each location outlined in the vacancy and hold a separate locational reserve list for each of these locations. After appointments have been made using this locational appointment process, any remaining candidates who met the benchmark for the role will remain on a locational reserve list in accordance with their preferences for 12 months. Please only indicate preferences where you are prepared to work. If you are subsequently offered a role from the reserve list for a location preference indicated in your application and decline it, you will be removed from the reserve list for the vacancy, across all locational preferences. All offers of employment will be made strictly in merit order, based on your performance throughout the recruitment process. Candidates at the top of the merit list will be offered vacancies as they arise in their chosen locations. Once you have accepted an offer for a role, you will be withdrawn from any other lice applications for the same role and will no longer be considered for those vacancies. The addresses listed in the job advertisement are not an exhaustive list of potential base locations, they give an indication of some of the potential locations you could be based at. We will therefore endeavour to offer you a vacancy within a 60‑minute commute of your home location. New entrants to the Civil Service will be expected to join at the entry point salary for the advertised band. Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Departments pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules. Due to the length of this recruitment campaign, we will endeavour to inform you of your outcome following the interview. Successful candidates will be placed on a reserve list and will be allocated or offered roles once the campaign has fully concluded.

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non‑contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone's circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review. For nationally advertised roles, the successful candidate(s) will be appointed to a MoJ office location, which may include their nearest Justice Collaboration Centre or Justice Satellite Office. This will be discussed and agreed on the completion of pre‑employment checks. Some of MoJ's terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week excluding breaks which are unpaid. HMPPS welcomes part‑time, flexible and job‑sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part‑time, flexible and job‑sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the HMPPS' Flexible Working policy.

Benefits

Annual Leave: Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years' service, plus public holidays. Leave for part‑time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro‑rated basis.

Pension: The National Probation Service is covered by the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) run through the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF). Please visit www.gmpf.org.uk for further information. Please note: Any current Civil Servant who is a member of the PCSPS, by accepting an offer of employment to the National Probation Services will be opted out of the PCSPS and auto‑enrolled into the Local Government Pension Scheme.

Training: The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.

Networks: The opportunity to join employee‑run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

Eligibility

All candidates are subject to security and identity checks prior to taking up post.

• A range of 'Family Friendly' policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
• Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
• For moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on www.GOV.UK or Childcare Choices. You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
• Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
• Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order.

• To Transformative Business Services (0345 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail [e-mail]);
• To Ministry of Justice Resourcing team ([e-mail]