Consultancy Review of JAC Remote Assessment

The purpose of the procurement is to establish a Contract for the Consultancy Services for the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), an Arms Length Body (ALB) of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

The JAC is responsible for the selection of candidates for judicial office in courts and tribunals in England and Wales, and for some tribunals with UK-wide jurisdiction.

An independent review of the effectiveness of the assessment tools that JAC use to shortlist candidates was conducted in 2018 concluded that the JAC were broadly following a best practice approach. However, the review set out a number of recommendations for further improvement - which the JAC have been implementing. This external scrutiny from recognised industry experts has strengthened the confidence of key stakeholders in the assessment tools used by the JAC in recruitment.

Since March 2020 the JAC has been undertaking a full remote approach to candidate assessment in response to COVID19. Early indications are that this has been a success and an extension of the remote assessment approach to selected recruitment exercises, post COVID19, has the potential to deliver benefits to the JAC.

The JAC Commission Board have asked for an evaluation of the approach to remote assessment to be presented to them during 2021 with recommendations as to where in the forward programme a remote approach to assessment may be extended post-COVID19

Consultancy services are required to support this initial evaluation, further reviews and implementation of changes as necessary over the period of the contract.

This will be a three (3) year Contract covering the years, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 to allow JAC to call off Consultancy Services throughout the period.