48390 - Senior Planning and Operations Manager

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Overview

This is an exciting opportunity to help lead and shape the future of the Planning and Operational Support (POpS) team at the Judicial College. We are looking to recruit a self-motivated, enthusiastic and flexible individual with strong leadership and operational delivery skills to lead a team in planning and managing the judicial training programme. 

This is a senior position and will work closely with all parties who contribute to the creation and delivery of the judicial training programme, including colleagues within the Judicial College, the judicial training team and stakeholders across the Judicial Office, MoJ and HMCTS. 

The role would suit someone with operational and change management experience looking for a challenging role. 

The Judicial College

Judicial College is part of Judicial Office (JO), an arm’s-length body of the Ministry of Justice. The JO is a unique branch of the Civil Service, independent from Government, dedicated to supporting the judiciary and promoting judicial independence, to maintain confidence in the rule of law. The Judicial Office reports to, and is accountable to, the Lord Chief Justice and was set up in 2006 to provide support to him and to the wider judiciary following the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.  In addition, we support, and are accountable to, the Senior President of Tribunals, whose responsibilities extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.  We support some 22,000 judicial office holders, providing policy, legal and handling advice and operational support.

The principal role of Judicial College is to support the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals in fulfilling their responsibilities for the arrangements for training the judiciary in an ever-evolving justice system.  Working with the College Board, the Judicial College supports these senior members of the judiciary in setting the direction for training and ensuring the College has the right support in place to provide advice on the design and delivery of training, innovative digital systems to support delivery and that seminars are well organised. Our purpose is to strengthen the rule of law and improve the administration of justice through delivery of essential training for the judiciary in courts and tribunals, as well as a framework of training for magistrates. 

The Planning and Operational Support team (POpS) is the customer facing hub of the College – we provide the organisational support to judicial training events across the UK.  The College delivers approximately 400 training events a year.  As a result of the pandemic, we have been delivering training digitally since April 2020 in line with public health guidance.  However, we are in the process of returning to face-to-face training during the course of 2021, whilst continuing to deliver a busy digital training programme. 

The POpS team is based over three sites – London, Loughborough and Glasgow.  We have a large team of course organisers (Band E/AO) and team leaders (Band D/EO) based across these offices and office managers (Band C/HEO) in three of our sites.  We are looking to recruit a London based Band B (SEO) manager to lead the courts judiciary and faculty training programme through this recovery period, help set the future training programme and build a resilient team to support delivery. 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/judicial-office/

Overview of the Role

At a time of significant investment in judicial recruitment, reform of the Courts and Tribunals, and recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic you will have an opportunity to work as part of the POpS senior management team.  As one of our Senior Planning and Operations Managers you will work closely with your peers to ensure that the College’s current and future training programmes are planned, organised and delivered to schedule, properly resourced and you will have a strong focus on the standard of service provided by your team.  You will have a specific lead on the courts judiciary and faculty training programme and you will oversee a team largely based in the London office, with some staff in the Loughborough, to deliver this objective.

As well as working with your College colleagues, you will work very closely with the judicial training teams and our wider stakeholders, such as the Judicial Office Business Support Team, HMCTS and Judicial HR, to monitor and manage the training programme.  You will also directly support the Head of Operational Support in the management of the new and emerging training needs, the budget, deployment of staff resources and continuous improvement.  

Do you have superb planning skills? Are you a proactive and confident leader who enjoys building and motivating a team to deliver? Are you comfortable managing a profile of work at pace which is subject to, at times, necessary variation and change whilst keeping a clear focus on delivery? Are you able to keep multiple parties who depend on the accuracy and completeness of your information up to date and well-informed in what can be a dynamic environment? Do you enjoy reviewing ways of working with a view to improving a service and outcomes?

If you answered yes to these questions, then this role may be one to consider as we are looking for a leader who is a highly organised planner, with superb team management and communication skills, and a determined eye for delivering the best possible service to be one of our Senior Planning and Organisation Managers within POpS.     

This is a full-time role, but we can consider part-time (minimum 0.8 of full time equivalent) or a job share.  The post-holder will be based out of our London office with some travel expected to the Loughborough and Glasgow offices.

Role purpose

The purpose of the role is to provide strong operational oversight of the judicial training programme, with specific focus on the tribunals and coroners training programme.  You will lead a team of circa 30 in their planning and organisation of both face to face and digital training and ensure that the College delivers a complete and timely training programme to support the Judicial Office mission of ‘Right Judge, Right Place, Right Time’.  You will work with the POpS senior management team to support the planning and delivery of the current and future training programme each year.

Your key duties will be to:

• Lead and provide strategic direction and manage the POpS team to organise and assist with the delivery of judicial training.
• Be an active member of the senior management team, contribute to the leadership and management of the team and the wider Judicial College. 
• Ensure that POpS have the appropriate staff and financial resources to deliver any training required, flagging any concerns with the Head of Planning and Operational Support at the earliest opportunity and making recommendations.
• Ensure that the team complies with its responsibilities for course organising and delivers a high standard of service to delegates, the judicial training teams and other stakeholders. 
• Contribute to the monitoring and management of the judicial training budget by overseeing the provision of reporting required from your team to support accurate forecasting of spend, reporting on risks and pressures and ensuring value for money.  Prepare business cases for any new funding required in year.
• Ensure your team takes appropriate action in response to new training needs throughout the year by working closely with the Band B Training Programme Manager to monitor, forecast judicial recruitment and plan training accordingly.
• Develop and facilitate a continuous improvement plan to assist POpS to be a high-performing customer service delivery unit.
• Work in partnership with the Judicial Education Team and Digital and Technical Team in the College to support and help implement digital ways of working (e.g. e-learning, webinars).
• Advise and support the College Board and judicial training committees when required on operational matters and plans for training at their regular meetings and in the intervals in between if required so that decisions are made with awareness of the relevant information and issues.

The role reports to the G7 Head of Planning and Operational support and will work closely with the G6 Head of Operations, Governance and Policy.

Essential skills and experience

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate:

• Proven experience in planning a schedule of activity with the ability to make effective decisions on prioritisation, how to make best use of your resources to achieve both short- and long-term results.
• A strong track record in leading a team to deliver a programme of work at pace.
• A history of managing excellent customer/stakeholder relations.
• Excellent leadership skills including the ability to manage through change and motivate teams and build capability and resilience.
• A track record of leading a team of staff across various grades.
• Demonstrable experience of identifying operational efficiencies in existing ways of working to improve a service.
• The ability to build effective working relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders including our customer base, the judiciary.
• The ability to provide clear evidenced briefing in both written and oral formats to senior managers and the judiciary on areas where there are a range of views.

Desirable:

• Experience of managing teams based across geographically dispersed sites.

Selection criteria:

We will assess your application against the following Civil Service behaviours:

• Leadership
• Changing and improving
• Delivering at pace
• Managing a quality service
• Working together

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade (Level 3 – SEO)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/717275/CS_Behaviours_2018.pdf

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles, and the sift will assess the behaviours outlined above. 

At interview we will be assessing experience, behaviours and strengths.

Interviews will take place w/b 18 October and will be online.

Working hours

We operate a flexible working policy, including remote working.

This post will be based from our London office with some travel expected to Loughborough and Glasgow where required.