About the job

Job summary

This position is based Nationally

Job description

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

Lead Data Scientist (1 role available) - Data Science Hub

Data & Analysis, Ministry of Justice

Grade 7

The national salary range is £54,358 - £61,585, London salary range is £58,847 - £66,670. Your salary will be dependent on your base location. London: may include an allowance of up to £20,466 National: may include an allowance of up to £20,167.

Overview

We have 1 permanent roles at Lead Data Scientist (Grade 7), in our Data Science Hub within the MoJ Data & Analytical Services Directorate, subject to qualifying conditions being met.

We are recruiting data scientists across the following grades: Senior Data Scientist (SEO – campaign 82587) & Lead Data Scientist (Grade 7 – campaign 82629). Please see the ‘Key Responsibilities’ and ‘Who you are’ sections to see which grade to apply to and if you’re unsure you can submit an application to both grades.

The successful candidate will have the option to be based in London (10 South Colonnade and 102 Petty France) or Leeds (5 Wellington Place) or in satellite offices throughout the UK (for more details see appendix).

What we offer

Your salary will be at least £54,358 and up to £66,670, with an allowance up to £20,466 depending on your skills, expertise and location. You will also receive great benefits including:

• 26 days leave (plus bank holidays) plus 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service
• up to 5 days paid volunteering leave
• a generous civil service pension, with employer contributions of 26-30% depending on your salary
• flexible and home working
• flexible office locations
• time off in lieu if at any point you work more than your contracted hours
• bike loans of up to £2500 through the cycle to work scheme and secure bike parking
• quarterly reward and recognition scheme
• wellbeing support, including access to the Headspace app
• access to subsidised onsite gyms at some office locations
• season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers

The Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice is a major government department, at the heart of the justice system. We work to protect and advance the principles of justice. Our vision is to deliver a world-class justice system that works for everyone in society. We are passionate about improving justice outcomes through innovative research, data and analysis.

The Data Science Hub
We are a multi-disciplinary team of around 70 staff that sits at the heart of the Ministry of Justice providing data science support across a diverse and exciting agenda. We work in a dynamic and fast-paced context and our skills are in heavy demand across the Ministry of Justice. Our collaborations beyond government are seen as ground-breaking.

We create a culture in which people are empowered with the data and information to make excellent decisions using cutting edge tools, techniques and collaboration and putting evidence at the heart of the justice system.

We have a track record of delivering digital services to front line staff using wide ranging data science techniques, including the award-winning safety diagnostic tool, which helps our staff tackle violence in prisons. We regularly deliver insights that directly influences corporate, operational and policy decisions. Our projects span the data science spectrum including machine learning, natural language processing, automation, advanced visualisation and optimisation.

What you’ll do

You will be leading a team of 2-4 data scientists, working within wider multidisciplinary teams, to deliver data science products and analysis.

The majority of projects will be conducted using Python, R and SQL on our AWS cloud infrastructure (known as the Analytical Platform) to work with data from across the justice system. You will work closely with other data scientists, the Data Engineering Hub (which builds the tools, services and pipelines that make data available on the Analytical Platform) as well as other data, digital, policy and operational colleagues.

The role

The post holder will lead a team within the Risk Assessment Data Science unit. They will be responsible for an ongoing programme of work to combine several major data sources to create datasets detailing the entire HMPPS offender caseload. These datasets are used widely across Data & Analysis to gain insights on the characteristics of the offender caseload, and understand the effects of policy and operational changes. The team also use this data to create a visualisation tool that informs local, regional and national decisions about prison and probation service provision and resourcing. As the Lead Data Scientist on the team, you would streamline the process for creating these products, work with Digital and other leads to bring in new data sources, address HMPPS requirements such as modelling demand for new offender services, and oversee other team projects to improve our understanding of offender risk using predictive modelling and NLP techniques.

Key responsibilities

• Lead a team of 2-4 data scientists to deliver data science products and analysis across the criminal justice system (e.g. within prisons, for the Probation Service)
• Act as a technical specialist and coach, developing team capability, supervising other data scientists, setting coding standards for the team and championing the adoption of best practice in data science
• Understand a broad range of architectures and collaborate with data engineering to design and deliver organisational products effectively
• Effectively communicate with and influence senior stakeholders, working with them to remove blockers so that the team can deliver efficiently
• Play an active role in making the Data Science Hub an inclusive and vibrant place to work.

Who you are

We’re interested in people who have:

• Strong knowledge of data science (e.g. machine learning and natural language processing) and experience leading teams to deliver data science projects / products, ideally in cloud computing environments
• Strong programming knowledge and experience delivering projects using Python or R
• Strong strategic thinking and problem solving to support organisational objectives, with ability to identify opportunities for data science and promote adoption and learning of new tools and techniques
• A track record of developing strong quality assurance, including producing robust and reproducible analysis using modern version control software.
• Ability to effectively communicate with and influence diverse stakeholder groups to deliver data science projects / products, including being able to explain data concepts and practices to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

How to apply

You’ll need to submit an anonymised CV and Statement of Suitability as part of your application. You will not be considered if you do not provide both.

Your CV should be no more than 2 pages long and should show us your work history and previous experience. It should be well structured, succinct and written in clear language. Try to avoid just listing technology keywords; we are interested in how you have used different tools to solve problems.

Your Statement of Suitability should be no more than 750 words and should give us examples of how your skills and experience match those needed for this role. Consider giving an example for each bullet point, in the skills requirements ‘Who you are’ section and use work you have completed to demonstrate how you meet each one.

All these requirements are important for the job, however we do not expect candidates to be expert in all of them. Just give as much evidence as you can for each and make sure you cover ‘how’ you demonstrated the requirements and the impact of your work, as well as ‘what’ you did. Again, if you are interested in applying but are not sure you have all the skills listed, please do apply and give us the opportunity to consider you as a candidate.

Selection process

There will be an initial sift of applicants through comparing submitted evidence against the ‘Who you are’ bullets. This usually takes two weeks, depending on the number of applications.

Applicants invited for interview

Those who make it through the initial sift will be invited to a Civil Service Success Profile interview. In the Civil Service we use Success Profiles to help us find the right person for the job. We will be using a mixture of methods to assess your experience, technical skills and behaviours. We highly recommend learning about Success Profiles and using the Situation, Task, Action, Result and Reflection (STARR) framework when structuring your answers.

The highest scoring candidates that pass the interview will be offered the roles. The whole process can take a month. Other candidates that pass the interview will be kept on a merit list for 12 months.

Presentation

At the interview we will be asked to give a five-minute presentation on a data science project you have delivered. Details of this will be sent to candidates before the interview.

Behaviours

The following behaviours will be tested:

• Communicating and Influencing - tell us how you work with colleagues to understand their needs and facilitate collaboration
• Changing & improving - tell us when and how you have driven a change in your workplace culture or practices.
• Managing a quality service – tell us when and how you have worked with colleagues to set priorities, objectives and timescales under challenging circumstances.

In your examples you should include evidence on ‘how’ you demonstrated the requirements and the impact of your work, as well as ‘what’ you did.

Technical – Data science skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• data science expertise
• working practices
• programming and coding skills.

Technical – Analytical Competency

As well as the three civil service behaviours and Data Science skills stated above, you will be assessed on your analytical knowledge, experience and abilities, and the impact of your analytical work.

Further Information and Appendix

We welcome applications from candidates based across the UK. Candidates will have the option of being based in the Leeds or London HQ offices (with flexible working arrangements available) or your nearest Justice Collaboration Centre or Justice Satellite Office. These are in Liverpool, Leeds, South Tyneside, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham, Cardiff, and Brighton, Stafford, Ipswich, Wolverhampton, Sheffield. Alternative locations may be available and will be discussed and agreed on the completion of background checks.

Interviews are likely to take place in early February 2024 and will be held via MS Teams. We will keep a merit list for a year for those who successfully pass the interview board but who are not offered a post.

If you require any additional information about the role, please contact the Data & Analysis Recruitment Team, on DataAndAnalysis.Recruitment@justice.gov.uk

Appendix

Examples of MoJ Data Science Hub work and ways of working:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/joined-up-data-in-government-the-future-of-data-linking-methods/splink-mojs-open-source-library-for-probabilistic-record-linkage-at-scale
• https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/2018/04/05/pushing-the-boundaries-of-data-science-with-the-moj-analytical-platform/
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2058802X.2020.1726654
• https://towardsdatascience.com/fuzzy-matching-and-deduplicating-hundreds-of-millions-of-records-using-apache-spark-93d0f095001f
• https://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2019/11/06/fostering-a-data-science-innovation-culture/
• https://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/30/engineering-the-data-of-the-future/
• https://github.com/moj-analytical-services

https://criminal-justice-delivery-data-dashboards.justice.gov.uk/

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £54,358, Ministry of Justice contributes £15,165 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

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)
• 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)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) 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 (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.