Ministry of Justice

Job title: Senior Head of Intelligent Client Capability

Directorate: Chief Financial Officer

Workstream:  Contracted Services Division

About us 

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales. Our roles support our service users and colleagues, where people and businesses access potentially life-changing justice.  We’re looking for individuals who are committed to public service and want to make a difference in people’s lives in delivering justice. If you’re interested in developing a career with a real purpose, please apply.

About the role

The Senior Head of Intelligent Client Capability role is varied, high profile, and central to the effective delivery of HMCTS’s contracted services. Its foundation is the leadership of operational contract management and supplier relationships, ensuring that critical services perform effectively and deliver for users. Alongside this core responsibility, the role spans operational delivery, commercial and market insight, and the ability to anticipate and respond to political and justice-related issues. It requires navigating a complex organisation and working closely with partners across the wider justice system.

You will lead the operational contract and supplier management for several critical services to HMCTS and justice partners, including Language Services (interpreting and translation), Court Reporting & Transcription, Intermediaries, and a range of other specialist services. Working closely with HMCTS operations colleagues and the commercial function, you will ensure these services deliver for users, resolving issues and driving continuous improvement.

You will lead strategic engagement with suppliers and key external stakeholders, including senior leaders across industry forums and legal professional groups, ensuring strong relationships, effective performance, and influential communication at the highest levels. You will retain oversight of a number of high value contracts, with an annual spend of approximately £50m, working in partnership with senior commercial leads and HMCTS managers.

You will lead a team of around 20, spanning grades from EO to G7, providing expert input on the most critical contracts and guiding and overseeing the remainder of the portfolio. As a key part of the Contracted Services Senior Leadership Team, you will also contribute to the leadership of a wider division of more than 70 colleagues, driving an ambitious agenda to improve contract management capability across HMCTS and supporting frontline teams to maximise the benefits of contracted services.

Succeeding in this role requires strong commercial acumen, excellent negotiation and influencing skills, and the confidence to hold suppliers and partners to account.

A typical day may involve chairing a supplier performance meeting, working with Operations colleagues to resolve a service issue, representing the contract management perspective at a project board, or developing approaches for establishing and sourcing new services.

Your role as the Senior Head of Intelligent Client Capability encompasses several key aspects (but not limited to):

• Lead and develop a team of c.20 staff, fostering a high-performing, inclusive culture, while contributing to the leadership of the wider team of c.70 colleagues.
• Provide strategic and operational oversight of critical contracts and suppliers, ensuring value for money, performance against contractual commitments, and effective management of commercial risks.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior stakeholders, both within HMCTS and with external stakeholders, acting as a trusted partner across HMCTS and the wider justice ecosystem.
• Identify and respond to strategic issues and emerging trends within relevant markets and across the justice system, ensuring the organisation is well-positioned to manage change and complexity, and that we have the appropriate contracts with suppliers to respond to these issues.
• Lead on risk management, proactively identifying, assessing and mitigating risks to service delivery, commercial outcomes, and our organisational objectives.
• Work collaboratively with HMCTS, suppliers, and other partners to ensure services are aligned with organisational priorities and consistently deliver for users and customers.
• Contribute to wider corporate leadership, supporting strategic planning, governance, wellbeing, and continuous improvement across the function.

Who are we looking for? (Person Specification)

The ideal candidate for this position should demonstrate:

Essential Skills

Leadership

• Proven experience of leading a team, or response, to deliver in a complex situation or area, and experience of developing team members in an area that requires subject matter expertise.  A background of working with multidisciplinary teams at a senior level, with a track record of building high‑performing and inclusive cultures.

Commercial, Contract and Supplier Management

• Significant experience of contract and / or supplier management (including supplier relationship management), including holding suppliers to account for performance, managing commercial risk, and securing value for money.
• Demonstrable ability to operate as an effective intelligent client, translating organisational needs into clear requirements and managing delivery through external partners.

Stakeholder Engagement and Influence

• Strong ability to engage and influence senior stakeholders across complex organisational boundaries, building credibility and trust with internal and external partners, including delivery organisations, commercial teams, and policy colleagues to achieve shared outcomes.

Strategic Thinking and System Awareness

• Experience of identifying and responding to strategic issues, including market dynamics, operating environments or system‑wide challenges.
• Ability to think strategically and long‑term, balancing immediate delivery pressures with future capability and sustainability.

Risk and Governance

• Demonstrable experience of risk management, including identifying, assessing and mitigating delivery, commercial and strategic risks.
• Understanding of governance, assurance and accountability within complex or regulated environments.

Delivery and Customer Focus

• Proven ability to work collaboratively with delivery organisations to ensure services are effective, resilient and focused on user needs, underpinned by a strong commitment to customer outcomes and continuous improvement..

The below criteria are desirable only. These will not be assessed throughout the recruitment process, but will be used in the event of tied scores between candidates 

Desirable Skills

• Experience of working within or alongside the justice system or another complex public service environment.
• Experience of operating in a matrix or multi‑partner delivery model, balancing accountability without direct line management.
• Understanding of market engagement and supplier ecosystems, including managing dependency on critical suppliers.

How to apply

Application Stage

Please submit:

• An anonymised CV. Please ensure your CV is uploaded in a simple format to prevent any formatting issues when it's downloaded or reviewed. 

Your CV should:

• Be succinct and clear.
• Be factually accurate – You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, is truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
• Include your qualifications, highlighting any modules or accreditation relevant to the role.
• Include your relevant experience, providing dates.
• Provide detail – we are interested in how your knowledge, skills, and experience demonstrate the capabilities we are looking for in this role.
• Statement of suitability demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria (up to 1000 words).

Your Statement of Suitability should be no more than 1000 words and should give us real life examples of how your skills and experience match those needed for this role. Consider addressing particular points in the person specification requirements and key responsibilities. We recommend following the STAR format.

You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.  

Interview Stage

If successful at sift, you will be invited to attend a remote interview, via Microsoft teams. During your interview, you will be assessed against the following Civil Service Success Profiles which will include:

A role play exercise based on experience of contract and / or supplier management.

Questions in relation to the following Civil Service behaviours;

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture.  
• Strengths will also be assessed however these are not shared in advance.

Working pattern

This is a full-time position only due to the nature of the role.

Travel requirements

There will be a requirement to travel occasionally to any HMCTS site in line with business needs

About our benefits

We reward our people for their hard work and commitment. We have a number of family friendly and flexible working polices that will help you achieve a healthy work-life balance. In addition, we offer a range of employee benefits which include generous annual leave, a highly competitive contributory pension scheme, childcare benefits, season ticket and bicycle loans.

Proud to Serve. Proud to keep justice going.