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 Delivery Manager

Location: National*

Closing Date: 11th February 2024

Interviews: w/c 26th February 2024

Grade: 6

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary: London: £70,303 - £80,475 (which may include an allowance of up to £10,172)

National: £66,314 - £75,810 

Working pattern: Full-time/Part-time/Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent 

Vacancy number: 83888

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found HERE

The Role

We’re recruiting for Lead Delivery Managers here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Office of the Public Guardian and Legal Aid Agency teams.

LAA Digital works to deliver swift access to legal aid for those who need it, and efficient payment to providers of those services. We aim to support the future of legal aid with sustainable, user-centred services such as Check if you can get legal aid.

The OPG Digital team is growing both in size and ambition, and this is a great opportunity to join a strong, positive and supportive team trying to make people’s lives easier and better by delivering services online to enable all citizens to prepare and utilise a Lasting Power of Attorney.

To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital please take a look at our blog and our Digital and Technology strategy 2025

Lead Delivery Managers are accountable for the effective delivery of groups of products and are responsible for the recruitment and performance management of delivery managers within their area. They also remain ‘hands-on’, supporting high-priority product delivery.

Lead Delivery Managers define and implement standards and processes for delivery and are experienced in leading multidisciplinary teams that build, support and continuously improve products of significant scale and complexity.

As a Lead Delivery Manager,  you will have a proven ability in successfully delivering large software development projects/programmes. This is a high-impact role where you will be building, maintaining and motivating teams; protecting them and making sure the teams in your area collaborate effectively. You’ll coach teams and facilitate a culture of continuous improvement, proactively managing dependencies and risks to overcome obstacles to delivery.

As an Agile delivery leader in our organisation, you will have a proven record of working with senior leaders, stakeholders and third parties to drive agile transformations at an organisational level. You will be part of our digital delivery leadership community driving cultural and procedural change and embedding Agile approaches and ways of working. With a strong background as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach (or similar roles) you will primarily focus on delivery strategy, while supporting the creation of self-organising and high-performing teams, supported closely by Senior Delivery Managers.

You will have the ability and experience of establishing/driving Agile delivery/transformations, through a solid coaching background. As well as demonstrating your leadership qualities in building new teams through hiring of FTEs but also using managed services suppliers.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build and lead an Agile Delivery Management function with approximately 15 Delivery Managers managing upwards of 50 digital products.
• Accountability for product implementation planning with the associated product managers ensuring backlog items are addressed and prioritised alongside other deliverables
• Lead project planning and work closely with the Lead Product Manager ensuring MVPs are clearly defined and value slicing is optimized for delivery
• Line management and coaching of Senior Delivery Managers
• Responsibility for managing the contingent labour or other 3rd party suppliers who augment the civil service workforce, ensuring 3rd party resources are managed effectively and in line with the contractual obligation
• Tracking and reporting of KPIs such as cycle time, throughput/velocity, bug arrival/departure rates, progress against roadmap, project delivery forecasting etc, across a group of products
• Managing escalations to senior leadership. As a senior level professional, providing effective interface with the highest levels within the organisation and bringing strategic value to the relationship.
• Defining and monitoring policies and procedures for the Delivery Management profession
• Responsibility for contract and budget management working closely with the Commercial and Finance teams to appropriately manage public finances
• Coordinating the teams' project plans, roadmaps, risk assessments, sprint boards and retrospective lessons to ensure usefulness, engagement, accountability and predictability
• Optimising the teams' backlog, ensuring it has enough buffer, correct priorities, stories are well understood, have adequate acceptance criteria in alignment with definition of ready
• Developing, guiding and improving process related ceremonies (refinement, planning, standups, demos and retrospectives)

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.
• We are committed to nurturing our staff and provide lots of training and development opportunities with learning platforms such as: Linux Academy, O’Reilly, Pluralsight, Microsoft Learning, Civil Service Learning, GDS Academy, etc.
• 10% dedicated time to learning and development with a budget of £1000 a year per person
• Generous civil service pensionbased on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 26-30% depending on salary.
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings’ birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, 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!
• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.
• Nurturing professional and interpersonal networks including those for Carers & Childcare, Gender Equality, PROUDand SPIRIT
• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)
• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.
• 5 days volunteering paid leave.
• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.
• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.

Person Specification

Essential

• Agile and Lean practices. You know how to coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices. You are a recognised expert that advocates for these approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team. You can create or tailor new ways of working; you are always innovating.
• Maintaining delivery momentum.You know how to optimise the delivery flow of teams. You actively address the most complicated risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team or no clear ownership exists. You can identify innovative ways to unblock issues.
• Team dynamics and collaboration. You know how to change organisational structures to fixable and sustainable designs. You can lead on strategy for an entire organisation, joining up business needs with innovative analysis. You can make and justify decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity. You know how to build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent and diverse stakeholders. You can solve and unblock issues within teams or departments at the highest level. You understand the psychology of a team and have strong mediation skills. You can coach an organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution.
• Making a process work.You can identify and challenge organisational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated. You can add value and can coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes. You know how to guide teams through the implementation of a new process.
• Communicating between the technical and non-technical. You can mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels. You can manage stakeholder expectations and facilitate discussions about high risk and complexity even within constrained timescales. You can speak and represent the community to large audiences inside and outside of government.
• Leadership
• Developing Self & Others

Willingness to be assessed against  the requirements for BPSS clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and Personal Statement (750 words max), which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

• Leadership - Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference and external experience. Welcome and respond to views and challenges from others, despite any conflicting pressures to ignore or give in to them. Stand by, promote or defend own and team’s actions and decisions where needed. Seek out shared interests beyond own area of responsibility, understanding the extent of the impact actions have on the organisation. Inspire and motivate teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role.
• Changing & Improving - Encourage, recognise and share innovative ideas from a diverse range of colleagues and stakeholders. Give people space to take initiative and praise them for their creativity. Create an environment where people feel safe to challenge and know their voice will be heard. Make changes which add value and clearly articulate how changes will benefit the business. Understand and identify the role of technology in public service delivery and policy implementation. Consider the full impact of implementing changes on culture, structure, morale and the impacts on the diverse range of end users, including accessibility needs. Identify early signs that things are going wrong and respond promptly. Provide constructive challenge to senior management on change proposals.
• Developing Self and Others- Prioritise and role-model continuous self-learning and development. Identify areas individuals and teams need to develop in order to achieve future objectives. Support colleagues to take responsibility for their own learning and development. Ensure that development opportunities are available for all individuals regardless of their background or desire to achieve promotion. Ensure individuals take full advantage of learning and development opportunities available to them, including workplace based learning. Encourage discussions within and between teams to learn from each other’s experiences and change organisational plans and processes accordingly.

A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview, which may include a task, held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on Agile and Lean Practices, and Leadership will be conducted before the sift.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact recruitment@digital.justice.gov.uk

 

Person specification

Please refer to attached Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £66,314, Ministry of Justice contributes £18,501 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

How to Apply

Candidates must submit a CV and Personal Statement (750 words max), which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above.

In Justice Digital, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

• Leadership - Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference and external experience. Welcome and respond to views and challenges from others, despite any conflicting pressures to ignore or give in to them. Stand by, promote or defend own and team’s actions and decisions where needed. Seek out shared interests beyond own area of responsibility, understanding the extent of the impact actions have on the organisation. Inspire and motivate teams to be fully engaged in their work and dedicated to their role.
• Changing & Improving - Encourage, recognise and share innovative ideas from a diverse range of colleagues and stakeholders. Give people space to take initiative and praise them for their creativity. Create an environment where people feel safe to challenge and know their voice will be heard. Make changes which add value and clearly articulate how changes will benefit the business. Understand and identify the role of technology in public service delivery and policy implementation. Consider the full impact of implementing changes on culture, structure, morale and the impacts on the diverse range of end users, including accessibility needs. Identify early signs that things are going wrong and respond promptly. Provide constructive challenge to senior management on change proposals.
• Developing Self and Others- Prioritise and role-model continuous self-learning and development. Identify areas individuals and teams need to develop in order to achieve future objectives. Support colleagues to take responsibility for their own learning and development. Ensure that development opportunities are available for all individuals regardless of their background or desire to achieve promotion. Ensure individuals take full advantage of learning and development opportunities available to them, including workplace based learning. Encourage discussions within and between teams to learn from each other’s experiences and change organisational plans and processes accordingly.

A diverse panel will review your application against the Person Specification above.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a 1-hour panel interview, which may include a task, held via video conference.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on Agile and Lean Practices, and Leadership will be conducted before the sift.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.