What is GAP?


GAP is an amazing one to one mentoring opportunity which matches university students, from under-represented backgrounds, with a mentor from the Civil Service who has an expertise in a particular professional area. The programme aims to build confidence, aspiration and support future career choices, as well as enhancing communication skills and building new networks.

GAP aims to provide students from less privileged backgrounds with access to a Civil Service professional who can provide a real-life knowledge and experience of a profession and help build soft skills like communication and networking.

Mentees are encouraged to talk about their career aspirations and any opportunities or barriers they feel may prevent them from achieving their goals. The role of the mentor is to offer guidance and advice, as well as helping to identify solutions to support mentees to achieve their potential.

What is it Not?

GAP is not an entry route into the Civil Service, there are no roles attached to this programme. However, if you are part of GAP, you will receive regular communications about upcoming job opportunities alongside bespoke sessions on subjects (Application Writing, Interview skills etc).

GAP is not about support for VISA’s, Passports or other applications relating to immigration, our Civil Service mentors are there to support your professional development and future career choices.

Commitment

GAP should only be considered by students who are able to commit fully to the programme. Mentors are giving up their own time and commitment to provide this support and it is essential that students do likewise. We will provide a Certificate of Participation for those mentees who complete the programme.

To take part in the programme students must commit to:

Investing their time to engage with the mentor; typically, six 1 hour sessions over the four months via digital platforms.

Actively participating in the scheme, imparting/receiving advice and considering opportunities to develop.

Completing feedback / evaluation forms to allow us to make improvements that will benefit others in future.

Notifying the programme organisers of any changes, e.g. contact details, programme participation.

Mentees must complete a minimum of 5 out of the 6 sessions to receive their Certificate of Participation at the end of the programme.

Mentoring sessions will take place via MS Teams/phone call for a period of 4 months (January to April). A guidebook will be provided to assist with conversation starters and session pointers.

Eligibility Criteria

Students must come from lower socio-economic backgrounds (LSEB), an example may be that they received/were eligible for free school meals at any stage in their schooling, they receive a higher bursary, or their parents were unemployed or in routine/manual labour job roles. There will be questions in the application form that will determine this and students who don’t meet the criteria will be notified. Students who are eligible will be notified when they receive their match.

Overseas students are eligible to apply, however they must consider whether they come from a less privileged background. We would also strongly advise overseas students to look at the government Right to Work guidance https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work to see if they are eligible to work for the UK Civil Service. Not having this will impact the support we can offer you.

This programme is open to 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students, there is no limitations on the degree subject they are studying.

If you are unsure or have any questions, please contact the team on graduateaspirationprogramme@justice.gov.uk.

When does mentoring take place?

Cohort 3 will last 4 months, and run from January 2025 to April 2025, to ensure we avoid the main exam period during May.

Mentee applications will open 21st October and close midnight 9th November 2024. The Social Mobility Team will match mentees and mentors based on a list of professional areas of work. Students will be matched where possible to their highest choice, followed by 2nd choice and then 3rd. Students and mentors will be notified of their match in December 2024 and be expected to reach out to their mentor as soon as possible to book in a session for January.

Mentoring slots will be allocated to each university equally, and these will be matched with students on a first come first served basis, until all slots are full. If universities don’t fill their allocated slots these will then be shared with other universities.

There are two Mentee information sessions that will take place for any students interested in finding our more or asking questions, see details below. These sessions will also be recorded so can be accessed using the same links once they have taken place.

GAP Mentee Information Session – 23/10/2024 – 11am-11:30am

GAP Mentee Information Session – 24/10/2024 – 4pm-4:30pm

Role of the University Lead

As the University Lead, we will require support from yourself to advertise the programme and ensure students applying understand the eligibility criteria (this will

also be checked at application stage, but we don’t want to disappoint students who haven’t been informed correctly).

University leads will also be our first point of call if we haven’t had any communication from a student, these leads will be responsible for getting in touch with the student to find out if they want to continue the programme. We have a duty of care to make sure everything is okay and to address any issues the student may be having with the programme. We expect all students to be committed to the programme and fully engaged with the sessions organised for them, if students aren’t, we will remove them from the programme. Students should let us know if they haven’t had contact from their mentor, we will try to resolve this or allocate a new mentor.

Our mentors will come from the range of professions listed below:

Climate - Covering climate change, food safety, transport emissions and sustainable housing as well as a host of other related work.

Commercial - Tackling some of the most large-scale and complex commercial challenges out there. From simplifying procurement to negotiating with suppliers to improve delivery or resolve disputes, we ensure value for money for the taxpayer.

Communications - Experts across campaigns, marketing, PR, digital, insight and evaluation and external affairs. Coordinating and guiding the implementation of communications for priority areas and are responsible for the annual communications plan.

Corporate Finance

Counter Fraud - Counter Fraud can offer a variety of opportunities in investigation, intelligence or assessing and managing fraud risks not just fraud threats from inside and outside of organisations, but is also areas like bribery and corruption, money laundering and cybercrime.

Digital, Data and Technology - Cross-government specialists from the Digital, Data and Technology Profession build and manage services that positively affect the lives of millions of people.

Economics - Supporting economists and promote the use of high-quality economic analysis in policymaking

Finance - Drive forward a range of activities within Commercial Finance, Income and Office of Accountant General. The aim is delivering insight & opportunities, mitigation of risks & issues, and robust financial challenge & control

Human Resources - Supporting all people activities in ministerial departments, non-ministerial departments, Arm’s Length Bodies, agencies and public bodes based across the UK and beyond.

Inspector of Education and Training

Intelligence Analysis - In an ever changing world, Intelligence Analysts work with a diverse range of sources to produce assessments that support decision makers and operations across HM Government.

Internal Audit - Supporting civil servants who provide independent assurance to public sector organisations on governance, risk management and internal control arrangements

International Trade - Promoting British trade across the world and ensuring the UK takes advantage of the huge opportunities open to us.

Knowledge and Information Management - It underpins the work of government. The role of the profession is to ensure that information is managed correctly from its creation to its eventual disposition. Classify, structure, store and protect official records so that their value can be unlocked.

Legal - Providing legal advice on the development, design and implementation of government policies and decisions, represent the government in court. From roads to rivers, to health and human rights, our work touches on most aspects of public life.

Medicine

Operational Delivery - Supporting staff in tax and benefit offices, job centres, courts and prisons across the UK, and many working in consular offices abroad.

Operational Research

Planning

Planning Inspectors

Policy - Policy professionals work at the heart of the Civil Service to design, develop and propose appropriate courses of action to help meet key government priorities and ministerial objectives.

Project Delivery - Thousands of projects are carried out each year across government to improve the UK's infrastructure, transform public services, safeguard national security and boost international trade. Almost all government policy is delivered through projects or programmes of one form or another.

Property - Major input into policies that have a significant impact on the delivery of government priorities: the transformation of the Justice system, developing future workplaces, creating innovative and sustainable working environments, investing in our substantial transport, military and infrastructure

assets and providing professional property advice to bodies across the public sector.

Psychology

Science and Engineering - A range of specialist, deep specialist, policy, analytical and operational roles encompassing science and engineering

Security - National Security - Working to keep the nation and it's people safe, protecting citizens data, the national infrastructure and considerable sums of money for public sector finance.

Security - Other than National Security

Social Research - It is the analytical profession within Government that generates and provides social and behavioural research and advice to enable government to understand issues relating to society, groups and individuals; and support policy debate and decision-making through a variety of approaches, advice and evidence.

Statistics - Collectively providing critical data and services that underpin policy making and public service delivery.

Tax - The Tax Academy promotes tax professionalism in HMRC on behalf of it's tax professionals. A tax professionals job role requires an in-depth understanding, awareness or application of one or multiple areas of tax policy or law.

Veterinarian

Support

A guidance pack will be provided for both mentor and mentee which includes advice and tips about what they can talk about in their sessions, these are just examples, sessions can develop in any way the mentee and mentor take them, this guide will be shared with mentees when they receive their match.

There is no expectation/guarantee of work experience or shadowing however, if possible, this can be discussed between mentor and mentee, the Social Mobility Team should then be made aware of this.

Evaluation

There will be midway check-ins to make sure mentees and mentors are enjoying their mentoring, and evaluation forms at the end so the Team can improve the programme for the next cohort. Please encourage your students to complete the forms to ensure these improvements can be made.

If you have any questions, please contact the MoJ Social Mobility Team on graduateaspirationprogramme@justice.gov.uk.

Apply here: GAP Mentee Application Form