25852 - Case Progression Officer

£23,957 - £27,679
1
12 Months
South East
St Albans
ST ALBANS CROWN ST ALBANS, AL1 3JW
EO
D
Fixed Term
For a period of up to 12 months
Full Time, Part Time/Job Share
Administration / Corporate Support

Background

The Tribunals Service and Her Majesty’s Court Service were integrated into a single Agency, Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service on 1st April 2011. Bringing these two organisations together has removed duplication in management functions and increased the efficiency of the administration, which has enabled HMCTS to reduce what it spends away from the front line substantially.

Consequently, there are high expectations of all staff regardless of the job they do and high performance is expected from everybody. The organisation is continuously adopting new or better ways of working to ensure that it focuses on just that which is essential.

Band D staff will need to display a commitment to four key principles: Continuous change, LEAN principles, managing uncertainty and improving performance. All those appointed to new roles in HMCTS must be wholeheartedly committed to these principles and evidence this in their application.

Overview

As a new organisation HMCTS is embarking on a period of significant change. Strong leadership is a critical element in this being successful. Jobholders who have responsibility for managing staff will be required to provide clear direction and focus, visibly championing the changes which deliver greater efficiencies. The HMCTS Delivery Directors expects managers in the organisation to operate in a culture of openness and honesty, demonstrating a commitment to change through involvement and empowerment, and by delivering results.

The key purpose of the role is to

  • Be responsible for the monitoring and progression of all criminal cases identified for case management from first appearance to disposal, ensuring that Trials proceed to completion without delay.
  • Work with others to achieve a reduction in ineffective and cracked trials both nationally and locally to meet national targets. The Case Progression Officer will also monitor effective trial rates to ensure that Court Room utilisation targets are met and improved.
  • Demonstrate use of Lean TIBs, SOPs and other continuous improvement tools.

Key responsibilities

Administration

  • To monitor, compile and analyse case progression and performance data as required and to prepare reports.
  • Use data to review case progression processes and structures to identify failure in systems, trends and propose improved ways of working to effect change.
  • To support the Legal Advisers, Magistrates, District Judges, Crown Court clerks and Judiciary in the implementation of their case management roles.
  • To review systems, identify weaknesses and work with others in the CJS to improve processes and to highlight to Senior Management when issues of compliance to directions are highlighted and to take remedial action as appropriate or make recommendations to Senior Management for improvements.
  • To ensure compliance with the Case Progression Officer LEAN SOP’s; and to work closely with the Court Administrative Teams and the Case Management Units to ensure that best practice is adopted and followed.

Operations

  • To capture case progression data from courts and other Agencies.
  • To work with others to reduce and prevent ineffective and cracked trials.
  • To work with others to improve the effective trial rate statistics.
  • To case manage contested criminal proceedings and ensure compliance by parties of directions made by the Court.
  • To be a point of contact for all requests to vary directions and/or applications for adjournment, working closely with the Listing Officer.
  • Checking with parties as to readiness for hearings as directed.
  • Prepare Certificates of Readiness for distribution 28 days before trial date.
  • To identify and review old cases and initiate action to progress them.
  • To attend PTR/PCMH Courts when required to advise on case management issues.
  • To prepare distribute and monitor automatic direction and PCMH Forms.
  • Monitor and proactively report on HMCTS assurance programme and contribute to ongoing development.
  • Deputise for the Delivery Manager as necessary.
  • Apply LEAN principles, tools and techniques to working practices to improve efficiency of operations.
  • To monitor return of PCMH forms 14 days before hearing and chase any outstanding.
  • To refer problems with pre-trial preparation to List Officer / Judiciary as appropriate.

Team leadership

  • Lead a team of staff ensuring that its members are organised, and fully skilled to meet their work objectives. Effectively managing both team and individual performance, addressing any issues as they arise, in line with HR policy.

Processing and managing casework

  • Work with staff to ensuring that casework is appropriately managed, providing information / advice where process deviations have occurred.

Calculations and analysis

  • Identify and implement solutions to local problems, referring more complex problems to the line manager.

Communicating with the public, juries, the judiciary, other court and tribunal users and representatives of other agencies and organisations

  • Maintain effective working relationships with the judiciary, supporting agencies, voluntary and user groups. Working with agencies to improve the level of service offered to users.
  • Attend and contribute to court user group meetings, case progression meetings, bench and legal adviser meetings, listing and administrative meetings as required.

Representation

  • Represent the function you have been assigned to at an operational level.

Specialisms

  • To have a working knowledge of functions undertaken within the Cluster, to support the development and review of policies and procedures.
  • To provide specific functions as directed by line management in line with the SOP for providing that service.

Accountability

  • Reporting to a Delivery Manager.

Other duties

The post holder is required to work in a flexible way and undertake any other duties reasonably requested by line management which are commensurate with the grade and level of responsibility of this post.

Location of Post

  • The post holder will ordinarily be assigned to a single location within the cluster but may be expected to work flexibly across a number of HMCTS venues to meet operational needs.

Key Civil Service Competencies

You will be required to provide evidence of the following key competencies at Level 2.

Changing and Improving

  • Understand and apply technology to achieve efficient and effective business and personal results.
  • Consider and suggest ideas for improvements, sharing this feedback with others in a constructive manner.
  • Conduct regular reviews of what and who is required to make a project/activity successful and make on-going improvements.
  • Put aside preconceptions and consider new ideas on their own merits.
  • Help colleagues, customers and corporate partners to understand changes and why they have been introduced.
  • Identify, resolve or escalate the positive and negative effects that change may have on own role/team.

Making Effective Decisions

  • Demonstrate accountability and make unbiased decisions.
  • Examine complex information and obtain further information to make accurate decisions.
  • Speak with the relevant people in order to obtain the most accurate information and get advice when unsure of how to proceed.
  • Explain clearly, verbally and in writing, how a decision has been reached.
  • Provide advice and feedback to support others to make accurate decisions.
  • Monitor the storage of critical data and customer information to support decision making and conduct regular reviews to ensure it is stored accurately, confidentially and responsibly.

Leading and communicating

  • Display enthusiasm around goals and activities – adopting a positive approach when interacting with others.
  • Listen to, understand, respect and accept the value of different views, ideas and ways of working.
  • Express ideas effectively, both orally and in writing, and with sensitivity and respect for others.
  • Confidently handle challenging conversations or interviews.
  • Confront and deal promptly with inappropriate language or behaviours, including bullying, harassment or discrimination.

Collaborating and Partnering

  • Demonstrate interest in others and develop a range of contacts outside own team to help get the job done.
  • Change ways of working to facilitate collaboration for the benefit of the team’s work.
  • Proactively seek information, resources and support from others outside own immediate team in order to help achieve results.
  • Readily identify opportunities to share knowledge, information and learning and make progress by working with colleagues.
  • Listen attentively to others and check their understanding by asking questions.
  • Take responsibility for creating a working environment that encourages equality, diversity and inclusion.

Managing a Quality Service

  • Explain clearly to customers what can be done.
  • Work with team to set priorities, create clear plans and manage all work to meet the needs of the customer and the business.
  • Ensure that levels of service are maintained – flag up risks or concerns in order to meet customer requirements.
  • Keep internal teams, customers and delivery partners fully informed of plans and possibilities.
  • Promote adherence to relevant policies, procedures, regulations and legislation, including equality and diversity and health and safety.
  • Identify common problems or weaknesses in policy or procedures that affect service and escalate these.

Delivering at Pace

  • Create regular reviews of what and who is required to make a project/activity successful and make ongoing improvements.
  • Be interested and positive about what they and the team are trying to achieve.
  • Take ownership of problems in their own area of responsibility.
  • Remain positive and focused on achieving outcomes despite setbacks.
  • Check own and team performance against outcomes, make improvement suggestions or take corrective action when problems are identified.
  • Set and achieve challenging goals and monitor quality.

Operational Delivery in HMCTS

This role is part of the Operational Delivery Profession. Operational delivery professionals are the outward face of government, providing essential services to the public in a variety of roles. They work in many different departments and agencies across the breadth of the UK, delivering service to customers in

  • Face-to-face roles in HMCTS for example a court usher
  • Contact Centre roles in HMCTS for example call centre advisers
  • Processing roles in HMCTS for example Staff at the County Courts Money-Claims Centre and Courts and Tribunal Administration

Being part of the operational delivery profession means belonging to a cross-government community of people. This will offer you access to information on professional standards, skills development and qualifications to help you continue to improve your development and performance and expand your career options.

The job holder must be able to fulfil all spoken aspects of the role with confidence in English or (when specified in Wales) Welsh.

This appointment will be made on a fixed term appointment. For existing civil servants, whilst the role itself is time-limited, successful appointment on promotion will secure this grade on a substantive basis. At the end of the fixed term period, existing permanent civil servants will be placed on the re-deployment register. The fixed term period will not affect the employment status of existing permanent civil servants.

Making a real difference to people’s lives is such an integral part of working at HMCTS that we’ve built it into an agreement with everyone who works here. It’s called our people promise. Please click here to find out more

Working Arrangements & Further Information

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.

Flexible working hours

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices.

Benefits

The MoJ offers a range of benefits:

Annual Leave

Generous allowances for paid holiday starting at 25 days per year, and rising as your service increases. There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Pension

The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.

Training

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

Support

  • A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
  • Access to flexible benefits such as salary sacrifice arrangements for childcare vouchers, and voluntary benefits such as retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
  • Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
  • Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

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 employees.

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.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity.

There is a guaranteed interview scheme (GIS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Eligibility

Staff on fixed term appointments must have been recruited through fair and open competition.

To be confirmed

30/04/2019, 23:55 hours.

If you require any assistance please call 0845 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@sscl.gse.gov.uk Please quote the job reference - 25852.

To apply for roles in MOJ you will need to confirm your employment history for at least 3 years prior to the date of application so that pre-employment checks (BPSS) can be undertaken. If you have spent significant time abroad (a total of 6 months in the past 3 years) you would be required to give a reasonable account of the reasons why. 

For some roles you will be required to successfully complete National Security Vetting at Counter Terrorism (CTC), Security Clearance (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV) level as a condition of appointment. To meet CTC/SC/DV requirements you will normally need to have been resident in the UK for at least 3/5/10 years prior to the date of application (The level of checks that are required are stated in the advert).

If you do not meet the above requirements, you may still be considered if, for example:

  • You've been serving overseas with HM Forces or in some other official capacity as a representative of HM Government
  • You were studying abroad
  • You were living overseas with parents

In such cases you will need to be able to provide referee cover for the period(s) of residence overseas. The duration of overseas residence and the country of abode will also be taken into account.

Candidate Information

You may be required to provide statements describing your skills and experience relevant to each of the selection criteria. We recommend that you structure any examples as Situation, Task, Action and Result. For more information about the recruitment process and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

In the event of a large number of applications, we reserve the right to undertake the following processes:


  • An automated online test where a benchmark must be passed to progress;
  • A sift on the lead selection criteria. If this happens, the lead criteria will be the first one listed in the advert.

During the selection process, you may be asked to undertake an additional assessment (such as written test). If this is applicable you will be notified of this when you are invited to interview.



if you feel that your application has not been treated in line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) in the first instance
Changing and Improving
Making Effective Decisions
Leading and Communicating
Collaborating and Partnering
Managing a Quality Service
Delivering at Pace

We have provided detail of the assessment stages and areas being assessed to help you prepare for completing your application form, and to advise of what will be assessed following this, if you successfully pass the application stage.


Application form stage assessments

Interview stage assessments

There is 1 interview stage for this vacancy.

A Great Place to Work for Veterans

The "Making the Civil Service a Great Place to work for veterans" initiative includes a guaranteed interview scheme to those who meet the minimum criteria to provide eligible former members of the Armed Forces with opportunities to secure rewarding jobs. Allowing veterans to continue to serve their country, and to bring highly skilled individuals with a broad range of experience into the Civil Service in an environment, which recognises and values your previous service in the Armed Forces.
For further details about the initiative and eligibility requirements visit : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

Redeployment Interview Scheme

Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ are committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ are able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidate's will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

· UK nationals

· nationals of the Republic of Ireland

· nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK

· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families

· nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

· individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020

· Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

This Vacancy is closed to applications.