25826 - Direct Services Contract Support Manager
Location:
The role is based in the Manchester or Leeds LAA regional office. Applications are welcome from candidates across England and Wales. However, please note that during induction the successful candidate will be expected to spend 2-3 days a week in Manchester/Leeds with this decreasing to 1 day per week the induction period is successfully completed. In additional the candidate will be required to travel to provides located throughout England and Wales with multiple visits undertaken each month.
Working Pattern: This post is supported by the MOJ Flexible Working Policy and includes colleagues who work flexibly, part-time or as part of a job shares etc.
Department: Contract Management
Reports to: Direct Services Specialist Provider Contract Manager
Organisational context
The Legal Aid Agency is responsible for the provision of civil and criminal legal aid and advice in England and Wales to help people deal with their legal problems. This is a great time to join the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), it can be a fast-paced environment requiring good organisation and resilience, however the rewards and flexible working opportunities make the LAA an employer of choice. You will receive comprehensive training and support with opportunities to develop. For the right person, this role will help you develop or sharpen your commercial capabilities.
Contract Managers are the external face of the LAA to providers and stakeholders alike. The Direct Services Contract Management team are responsible for the effective delivery of both civil and criminal telephone advice contracts. They manage financial, political and reputational risk to the LAA and the MoJ by developing and sustaining productive relationships with stakeholders and by ensuring compliance with LAA contracts, helping and educating providers where appropriate, and sanctioning the same when requirements are not met.
Job summary
This role requires the successful candidate/s to support the Direct Services Contract Managers on the Direct Services Team to manage Contracts between contracted organisations and the LAA by tracking provider performance and identifying risks and trends, providing solutions and escalating as appropriate. Primarily, they will support Civil Legal Advice (CLA) Contract Managers in ensuring the effective delivery of CLA services with a clear focus on quality, quality assurance, and delivery across the service. Working with CLA colleagues they will together use performance management information and assessment tools to identify risk against client and the fund, against individual providers or the Civil Legal Advice service as a whole.
Key Duties and responsibilities
- Support the mobilisation and implementation of the CLA Operator Service Contract
- Preparation, support and delivery of guidance and training materials
- Prepare Operations Manual and other key documents with new providers
- Assist in tracking performance and quality assurance of providers exiting the service if applicable taking necessary steps to avoid any significant concerns for delivery up to the contract end date
- Track and monitor progress of new providers against mobilisation plan escalating concerns where deadlines and milestones are in danger of being missed
- Be directly involved in quality assurance of new providers during mobilisation of new contracts and the ongoing focus on quality and effective service delivery within CLA and across CLA Specialist Providers
- Provide direct, honest and constructive feedback to providers on performance, making suggestions for improvement
- Sit on working group with Service Development and Central Commissioning and liaise on contract mobilisation issues as required
- Analyse compliance with key areas of the Contract as directed by the Contract Manager
- Ensure the accuracy of data and provision of analysis. Feeding back key concerns and other intelligence and making recommendations for change/improvements
- Build and maintain relationships with Central Commissioning, Service Development and MOJ Digital Services Team to ensure any issues during mobilisation are dealt with appropriately.
- Coach and support less experienced team members; mentoring new starters
Person Specification
Essential
- You are a highly organised self-starter, able to motivate yourself. Working both within a team and at times also working independently, taking ownership to achieve specified outcomes.
- You are driven, embrace change and are comfortable working within a fast-paced environment where no day is the same. You remain effective and can be flexible when faced with conflicting deadlines
- You can analyse information to inform your decisions to identify and prioritise key tasks.
- You will enjoy working with a range of key stakeholders and build effective working relationships both inside and outside of the organisation. You can influence others and flex your style accordingly whilst maintaining integrity.
- You enjoy the analysis of data and are able to identify trends and make recommendations for improvement.
- You are comfortable with changing priorities and able to effectively collaborate to ensure you team delivers.
- You able to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing.
Desirable
Knowledge of Office 365 applications
Behaviours
You must be able to demonstrate the following Behaviours during the assessment process:
- Delivering at Pace
- Making Effective Decisions
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
Assessment Approach
After an initial written application, you will be invited to an Interview during which you will be assessed against the required Behaviours and Strengths. You will also be asked to review a report and deliver a presentation on your findings.
Training
You will be provided with training on all relevant aspects of both the Contracts.
The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.
Our LAA commitment
We welcome applications from candidates with caring responsibilities and would be happy to discuss the support we can offer, in particular flexible working options which include part-time, compressed hours and job shares.
The LAA is committed to diversity and inclusion and we positively promote flexible working, including job shares.
We will consider all applications on merit regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, religion, ethnicity, preferred working pattern and except for exceptional circumstances your working location.
As a Disability Confident organisation, we will offer a guaranteed interview to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for this role. Under the Equality Act 2010 a disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities which has lasted, or is expected to last, at least 12 months.
If you are responding to a role within the Legal Aid Agency and would like to be considered under the guaranteed interview please ensure that you attach the Guaranteed Interview Form when you return your application. You can use the same form to let the recruiting manager know of any reasonable adjustments you may require during the sift or later selection processes.
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.
29/04/2019, 23:55 hours.
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.
Success Profiles will enable a fairer and more inclusive method of recruitment by enabling us to assess the range of experiences, abilities, strengths, behaviours and technical/professional skills required for different roles. This flexible approach to recruitment focuses more on finding the right candidate for the specific role. To find out more about Success Profiles to support your application please click here for further guidance.
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
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.