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.

Grade: 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: 85753 

*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 ON THIS MAP

The Role

We’re recruiting for five Lead Product Managers here at Justice Digital, to be part of our warm and collaborative Justice Digital teams. 

This role aligns against Lead Product Manager role from the Government Digital and Data Framework 

Millions of people every year interact with MoJ services, and here at Justice Digital we play an important role in making the experience of all of our users simpler, faster, and better. 

We have a clear vision - to deliver a world class justice system that works for all - and we’re looking for talented people to help us achieve it. Our MoJ strategy sets out our core priorities, this includes putting data at the core of our decisions and users at the heart of our services.  We are ambitious, and we need great product leaders to help us achieve the ambitions we have set out in our 2025 vision, delivering great outcomes through digital products.  

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.

Probation digital is working to make things simpler, faster and better for front line staff, so they can spend more time with people in our care, helping them out of the cycle of crime, or with their offending behaviour. We are also working with people on probation to understand their needs and deliver products and services to meet these.

Prison digital is working to create the tools that support the Prison Service to provide decent, safe and productive places to live and work and support prisons to protect the public & reduce reoffending. We work with our users in prisons to provide modern tools that share information and give staff focused efficiency.

Platforms and Architecture is working to enable efficiencies across Justice Digital by solving common problems on its modern and legacy services and its data platforms.

As our new Lead Product Manager you will form a key part of the senior leadership team and will be working closely with the Head of Digital and profession leads across delivery, research, business analysis, user research, technical architecture and development. You will be responsible for owning and developing the product strategy and optimising the overall value that Justice Digital delivers through our products and services. It's a really exciting and challenging time right now and you could make a considerable difference,  helping us to achieve great outcomes and bring your product leadership to our vibrant product community. 

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

Key Responsibilities:

• Be a visible product leader, applying your expert level product management skills by leading and supporting multidisciplinary product teams through the full product lifecycle, from discovery through to product retirement.
• Lead strategy development for your products and teams to create an articulate vision and achievable goals. You will iterate the product strategy and roadmap for an area of the justice digital portfolio which meets customer and organisation expectations, across digital and non-digital delivery, influencing and gaining support from senior leadership/stakeholders to gain buy-in.
• Represent your products and build strategic and collaborative win-win partnerships with stakeholders, colleagues, other government departments and policy, to design products that are aligned to organisation and government strategy.
• Role model the civil service values and behaviours to all those that you work with, supporting and leading a thriving, vibrant professional community of product managers, working with the Head of profession to teach, coach, mentor and continually contribute to mature an engaged product network across MoJ.
• Ensure that the deliveries within your product areas add value by advocating and championing user needs, product vision, and MoJs mission, helping us to support the future.
• Lead difficult and complex situations, anticipate problems, work within constraints and guide teams through complex decision making.to reach reasonable and acceptable conclusions for your stakeholders. 

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.
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms
• Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow
• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)
• 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, PROUD and 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

You will be working at expert level at all of the following:- 

• Product Ownership - the core skills of product management, particularly high volume digital products in fast-paced environments, working with multidisciplinary agile teams. Capable of defining your own approaches, coaching others, setting priorities and aware of what other sectors are doing.
• Strategic Ownership - the core strategic skills of product management, building the overall value proposition, developing a long-term vision, objectives and roadmaps that enable us to focus on outcomes, not outputs. Focussing on priorities and developing the capability of others.
• Problem Management - having the ability to anticipate, understand, articulate and solve problems by using great communication/influencing and collaboration skills that enable you to build strong interpersonal relationships and create inclusive environments to facilitate problem solving.
• Working Within Constraints - utilising your influence in challenging circumstances, understanding when to confront or remove constraints and using your resilience to support and coach others to accept less popular constraints. Making the right conclusions and making confident decisions at the right time.
• Life Cycle Perspective - Capable of leading teams through each stage the full product lifecycle from discovery through to product retirement, using your skills and experience to advise teams on tools and techniques. Successfully motivating and inspiring teams through great leadership.
• User Focus - acting as a champion for user needs across the organisation, giving direction on which tools or methods to use whilst demonstrating experience in meeting the needs of users across a variety of channels. Understands and brings insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure they're met by the business and apply strategic thinking to provide the best service for the end user. 

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. 

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 CV and Covering Letter (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 - developing self and others
• Changing & Improving
• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture 

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 30 minute panel interview, which may include a presentation element, held via video conference. 

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on User Focus experience 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

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.