44976 - DTS Service Operations Manager (Judicial and Royal Courts of Justice Group)

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

Important salary details:

New recruits to the Civil Service joining MoJ are expected to join at the band minimum.

Existing civil servants applying on promotion will usually be appointed on the salary minimum of the pay band or with an increase of 10 percent on their existing base salary (restricted to the new pay band maximum), whichever is the higher.

Merit List:

HMCTS run a Merit List, where candidates who are unsuccessful at interview, by only a few points, can be offered other roles, at the same band, for up to 12 months.

So, it is always a good idea to apply for a role, and try as best as you can at interview, as you never know what future opportunities it may open. You will be able to view your status via the application screen. If you have been added to the Merit List, your status will show either Merit or Reserve list.

Introduction:

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is an agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and provides the supporting administration for the Judiciary across England and Wales.  It delivers services to the public directly in court and tribunal buildings, remotely via business centres and increasingly via digital services online. HMCTS has a once in a generation opportunity to transform the entire Courts and Tribunals Service through the HMCTS Reform and Crime Programme, with funding confirmed in the most recent spending review. These Programmes are providing a world-class justice system, in a manner that provides an improved user experience at reduced cost to the taxpayer. This will ensure justice for all as well as supporting the UK’s position at the forefront of an increasingly competitive international legal market. Delivering and operating digital services lie at the heart of the transformation.

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.

Digital & Technology Services is growing as a key enabler of HMCTS’ future as a digital organisation, building the new digital products and live operations teams necessary to deliver online services to our users and staff. The directorate is creating, operating and enhancing critical national digital services.

Users include citizens, court staff, the judiciary, the legal profession and a wide variety of other participants in delivering justice. For example, HMCTS Digital & Technology Services has created and now operates and enhances services that have digitised the court room

These include paperless bundles for all parties in the Crown Court, a single evidence repository and tablet viewing solution in the Magistrates’ Court, as well as the critical infrastructure solutions to display evidence, deliver court hearings by video and achieve connectivity. Other live digital services enable citizens to interact with HMCTS directly online, whether they need help in the civil, family, or criminal courts, or need to apply to a tribunal.

An effective courts and tribunals service is fundamental to our democracy, underpinning the rule of law. This is an opportunity to work in a role that will enable the digitisation of a major agency and run an operation designed not just to give our courts and tribunals a sustainable and affordable future, but to improve how justice is delivered.

Overview:

Digital & Technology Services is looking to expand the digital operations support team to help HMCTS run great digital services. The role is responsible for the provision and coordination of appropriate and timely responses to incident alerts, including channelling requests for assistance to appropriate functions for resolution, monitoring resolution activity, hastening and keeping clients appraised of progress towards service restoration. There will also be a need to implement change and come up with inventive ways of managing continual service improvement.

The ability to work both independently and lead multiple teams across the Service Management work stream, proactively and with versatility in responding to changing circumstances is essential. You will be expected to take ownership of user problems and follow up the status on behalf of the user, communicating progress in a timely manner. 

The key purpose of the role:

The role has management and leadership responsibility within the HMCTS Digital and Technology Services for digital and technology products, providing a service to our users as part of the wider Live Operations team. The post holder will have the opportunity to be part of the team building and implementing the new digital operating model for HMCTS, at the heart of the future organisation.

The Service Operations Manager will coordinate the operation, support, maintenance and improvement of a number of digital services; This includes ensuring SLA’s are continually achieved, support is provided by the Service Desk for all current and new HMCTS Digital products. The role will also be responsible for service management across platforms, multiple channels and services to ensure service availability, performance and process maturity.

The role reports to the Head of Judicial and Royal Courts of Justice Group and will have line management responsibility within the DTS Judicial and Royal Courts of Justice Group of a multiple disciplined team working together with the Technical Lead for the business areas. The role will also lead the team, ensuring there are adequate resources and capacity to achieve its objectives and will also be expected to represent the service support function to senior stakeholders, as requested by senior managers.

Key Responsibilities:

Operations:

• Manage configuration items, related information, service compliance and high level risks that impact on delivery.
• Lead investigative work into problems with and opportunities in existing processes, driving the collection of information and creation of recommendations for improvements. Absorb large amounts of conflicting information and use it to produce solutions.
• Analyse current processes, identify and implement opportunities to optimise processes, and lead and develop a team of experts to deliver service improvements. Evaluate and establish requirements for the implementation of changes by setting policy and standards.
• Take accountability of issues that occur and be proactive in searching for potential problems. Achieve excellent user outcomes.
• Influence stakeholders and manage relationships effectively, building long-term strategic relationships. Facilitate and deliver business outcomes.
• See the bigger picture and investigate how to get the best of underlying services.
• Leverage data analytics skills to enhance business performance.
• Define strategies and policies, providing guidance to others on working in the strategic context. Evaluate current strategies to ensure business requirements are being met and exceeded where possible.
• Understand core technical concepts related to the role and apply them with guidance.
• Collaborate with users and represent users internally. Understand the difference between user needs and the desires of the user. Prioritise and define approaches to understand the business needs of HMCTS, guiding others in doing so. Offer recommendations on the best tools and methods to be used.
• Management of three distinct teams for eJudiciary 2nd/3rd line support, CE-File 2nd /3rd Line Support and all other applications and services within the remit of the team. Ensure team objectives are met and that specific deliverables and completed to time and quality. Develop with teams and individuals’ capabilities to provide a world class service. Liaise with manager and technical lead to ensure overall office objectives are met and reported on.

Analysis:

• Prepare and maintain analysis and knowledge to understand user needs, prepare and deliver guidance and communications to support operating and improving their performance of the DTS Service Desk and Service Management team.
• Establish training needs and knowledge transfer requirements, ensuring these are delivered where required.
• Act as a central contact point for all judicial and Royal Courts of Justice Group escalations related to DTS Live Operations.

Skills & Experience:

We’re looking for an individual with strong interpersonal skills who likes working with delivery focused and agile multidisciplinary teams. You will also contribute to the wider community and share your skills and experiences with others across HMCTS, MOJ and the wider Government, as required.

Essential Criteria:

• An in-depth understanding of Service Management Frameworks principles and processes and experience of working in a Service Management / ITIL environment.
• Proven experience of leading the delivery of an excellent customer service and proactively looking for innovative ways to improve the service delivered to customers.
• Experience of working collaboratively with Senior Heads of Departments and multi-disciplinary teams.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills with experience of successfully influencing others, negotiating effectively and winning over audiences with compelling and persuasive presentations.
• The ability to manage commercial relationships with suppliers, including procurement exercises, performance management and work plans would be an advantage.
• A track record of delivering significant change which improves business effectiveness in sustainable ways.
• Experience of working in large, complex organisations.
• Ability and experience of engaging with senior management and stakeholders and leading the representation of your work.
• Strong problem-solving abilities and analytical skills. You will be required to come up with solutions to business issues, using existing or new products to enhance access to justice. You will need to be able to identify solutions that are not only technically feasible, but also financially and commercially able to be delivered. A good knowledge of Microsoft products and generally hardware usage will be essential.
• Applied experience and responsibility for asset management and product hardware/software lifecycle management.
• Applied experience in identifying service / product gaps and managing these continual service improvements, issues and risks to ensure stable and successful operation of your Product/Service.
• Either a strong technical background with a high level of technical knowledge and experience with workplace products and/or Office 365 services or a strong business background with an understanding of HMCTS users and the technology used.
• Able to develop team members and get the best out of them and set clear direction.
• Ability to understand priorities and deliver against management requirements.
• Experience of leading, developing and managing a diverse team with a range of skills and workload to match.

Application process:

The following areas of Success Profiles will be used to assess and score your application during the sift, and interview.

• Experience – As demonstrated in your CV, statement of suitability, and application form
• Behaviours – We will be using the 2 behaviours listed below
• Strengths - The interview will involve a discussion around 4 strengths:

 Adaptable, Team Leader, Analytical and Service Focused

• Presentation - You may also be required to prepare a short presentation (Details will be provided when invited to interview)

Key Civil Service behaviours:

You will be required to provide evidence of the following key behaviours at Level 4.

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Flexible working options:

HMCTS offers a flexible working system in many of its offices.

Job Sharing and Reduced Hours:

All applications for job sharing or reduced hours will be treated fairly and on a case by case basis in accordance with the MoJ’s flexible working policy and equality policy.

Excess Fares and Relocation Allowances:

This job is not eligible for relocation allowances but excess fares may be considered in accordance with MoJ’s excess fares allowance policy

HMCTS offers a range of benefits:

Annual Leave:

Generous allowances for paid holiday starting at 25 days per year and rising as your service increases, plus bank holidays and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Queens’ birthday.

Great maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!

Up to 5 days paid leave for voluntary work you may wish to undertake.

Pension:

A generous pension scheme on average of up to 22%

Training:

HMCTS is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities through Civil Service Learning and with the assistance of our Learning and Development

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.