Role Title HMCTS Head of Communications and Engagement (Crime)
Job family
Job Communications and
For internal
Grade G7
Status
group
family/ies Engagement Directorate
use
Role Purpose The role of the HMCTS Communications & Engagement Directorate is to:
(250 words
max) Enhance and protect the reputation of HMCTS.
Facilitate corporate communication and engagement with internal and external stakeholders and court users.
Advise, challenge, and support the organisation to communicate and engage effectively.
As Head of Communications and Engagement (Crime), you will help ensure that the Communications Directorate, and in turn HMCTS, fulfil
its purpose. You will know and understand our external audiences and design and deliver communications plans that ensure our messages
reach our key stakeholders and help them understand the organisation’s strategic and operational priorities. You will be a trusted advisor to
senior leaders and support them to be visible and engaged with key stakeholders.
As Head of Communications and Engagement (Crime), you will be responsible, as part of the Senior Management team, in ensuring the
Communications Directorate, and in turn HMCTS, fulfils its purpose.
This is a senior management position where you will lead our external Communications and Engagement function, you will also play an
important role in directly managing key stakeholder relationships, predominantly with the legal profession and counterpart communications
teams across the justice system.
You will be expected to lead and manage a small team of specialist Communications professionals to support this work
Key Accountabilities (600 words max)
• Lead stakeholder communications and engagement work - from planning to implementation - and line-managing a team to support you in doing this.
• Provide a business partnering service supporting HMCTS through ongoing and evolving change live services and operational colleagues, and others as
required.
• Contribute to providing an integrated communications service that delivers content seamlessly and consistently across external and internal audiences
using a range of channels. Play a key leadership role in ensuring the communications team is effective and innovative. Co-ordinate and align stakeholder
communications and engagement activity with other G7s in the team.
• Foster strong working relationships with officials, providing them with communications advice and support to help them meet their business objectives.
• Advise internal ‘clients’ on best practice, emerging issues, risks, opportunities. Provide guidance to internal clients on the manner in which messages and
key themes are communicated to ensure consistency, clarity and impact.
• Develop and oversee delivery of stakeholder communications and engagement strategies and handling plans that support delivery of HMCTS’s priorities
and objectives.
• Lead and deliver a communications plan that supports the visibility, reach and connection between the Senior Management Team and the wider
workforce.
• Direct and quality assure the creation of stakeholder content and products, including being accountable for planning, promotion and delivery of
stakeholder events and webinars.
• Act as the key point of contact between the HMCTS communications team and MoJ press office. Align HMCTS stakeholder communications activity with
that of the wider Ministry of Justice group.
• Embed our values and support the delivery of corporate objectives by creating content, key messages and narratives including case studies, key facts and
statistics, presentations, news stories, briefings and lines-to-take.
• Champion uniformity and consistency of voice and adherence to our brand and style guide.
• Approval of products, content, and handling plans yourself - checking that they are editorially sound, strategically appropriate, operationally deliverable
and on message and guide products through wider clearance processes.
• Map stakeholder audiences, gather insight about them and network with them. You will understand audience wants, needs and expectations; feed this
intelligence back to the wider team/organisation; use this knowledge and expertise to shape communications interventions, channels and products that
meet their needs.
• Be adept at identifying, understanding and responding to new communication methods and deploying them at pace to support business objectives.
• Responsible for the reporting of communications and engagement activity in your area, playing an active role in its evaluation to deliver ongoing
improvement.
• Managing and co-ordinating crisis communications plans and responses in the event of a major incident.
• Business partnering and sharing best practice to all areas of HMCTS to improve knowledge and awareness of communications and engagement.
Knowledge, Skills and Experience (500 words max)
This is a specialist communications role, that is required to demonstrate capability across the four competency areas - Insight, Ideas, Implementation,
Impact - identified in the Government Communications Service Competency Framework including under the specialist area of ‘internal
communication’.
Essential
• Experience of leading stakeholder communications - both developing plans and operational implementation - in a large and complex organisation.
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills.
• Excellent copywriter, able to adapt writing style for different audiences and channels, with robust editorial skills.
• Strong relationship management skills, effective at negotiating and influencing at a senior level. Confident giving presentations, leading meetings, and
workshops, and
credible when speaking with the Senior Management Team or operational leaders.
• Strong planning, organisational and people skills, including delivering communication products to tight deadlines.
• Can quickly generate insights from available data.
• Can work quickly and effectively under pressure and through ambiguity, managing competing priorities and changing deadlines.
• Good knowledge of the communications landscape.
• Experience of leading a team, working collaboratively with diverse a mix of stakeholders to deliver results
Desirable
• Knowledge of change communication models, and how to put these into practice.
• Experience of delivering stakeholder communications to a diverse and demanding range of stakeholders. Good understanding of the challenges this
poses, with
demonstrable evidence of how this has been overcome.
• Sound understanding of the link between the stakeholder strategy and external communications, and the practical implications of this.
• Effective networker and influencer with a strong background of influencing change.
• Familiar with using content management systems.
Other duties:
The post holder is required to work in a flexible way and undertake any other duties reasonably requested by line management which are commensurate
with the grade and level of responsibility of this post. You will report to the Head of External Communications and Engagement but will also work alongside,
and at times advise, other senior members of staff both within HMCTS (including, but not limited to, the Director of Communications, the Chief Executive,
and other members of HMCTS SMT) and across wider MoJ departments.
Problem Solving and Decision Making (300 words max)
• You will be required to design and deliver strategies and plans that enable the business to communicate effectively with a diverse and demanding
range of stakeholders and audiences throughout a time of significant change.
• You will be expected to make difficult decisions, manage ambiguity, and overcome challenges with limitations of the technology/channels available to
you.
• You will be required to distil, co-ordinate and prioritise a large volume of very complex information, and to find ways of reaching court users and
stakeholders in a timely and effective way.
Management of Resources (250 words max)
• The role manages a team responsible for stakeholder communications and engagement, including senior leadership communications and
stakeholder events and you may be delegated financial responsibilities and/or a budget. You are required, always, to comply with financial controls
set by HMCTS.
• You will manage a functional area of the Directorate and prioritise and allocate the work in your own team
• You will be fully responsible for the welfare of your team, supporting team members to overcome setbacks and build resilience in your functional area
Autonomy (250 words max)
• The post holder is required to work independently to deliver our external communications and engagement strategy and manage a programme of work,
and stakeholder communications that support wider business needs.
• The post holder is often the gatekeeper for others to access stakeholder communications channels, and so is in a trusted position that requires care,
accountability, and judgment.
Key Relationships and Contacts (300 words max)
You and the team you manage will:
• be part of a wider network of communications and design professionals across government, connected through the Government Communications Service.
You will be expected to play an active part in these networks, contributing to and learning from its expertise.
• play an active part in internal and external networks, contributing to and learning from expertise for your team and the wider organisation.
• be responsible for leading relationships with and being the single point of contact for the following groups about communications and engagement activity
in your area:
o HMCTS officials: service owners, reform leads, operations leads, key HQ functions leads, SMT, CEO office
o MoJ officials: press office, external affairs, private offices, policy officials, Parliamentary Branch, MOJ Comms team (press, digital & external affairs)
o Judicial Office officials: communications team and private office
o Media enquiries
o Communications and engagement teams in partner and stakeholder organisations
o Professional and public users
o Government Communications Service (GCS) senior leaders
o Government Digital Service (GDS) senior leaders: publishing content online - including advice and guidance
• as functional lead provide advice, guidance and briefing to the above groups
• be expected to take part in networking to build capability and share skills across professional development groups
• be involved in benchmarking
• when appropriate, delegate representation of your team to those you manage who can fulfil the tasks required.