Head of Operational Excellence

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) is an executive agency of Ministry of Justice. We receive over 40,000 applications a year for compensation, from people who have lost loved ones or have been injured as a result of violent crime. We know financial compensation can never fully redress what they have suffered. Nevertheless, what we do is an important part of providing justice for victims and we take pride that the compensation we pay helps people move forward with their lives.

Some of the material you will access may include upsetting personal accounts of harm inflicted by others. This could include sexual assault and violence against children. We recognise the personal impact this may have and we provide resilience training, to promote wellbeing.

We employ around 350 people and are based in Glasgow city centre, with excellent transport links. We are a small, engaged, productive workforce with a real sense of corporate community. We want to keep improving our services and the way we work to best serve the public, meet new challenges, deliver value for money and ensure CICA is a great place to work.

This position is based at Buchanan Wharf, 10 Clyde Place, Glasgow, G5 8AQ. We currently operate a hybrid working business model, where you will be expected to work 50% of your time in the office and the remainder at home.

The Role

The Head of Operational Excellence is responsible for enabling high-quality, consistent, and well-governed operational delivery through leadership of quality assurance, learning and development, communications and engagement, operational business planning coordination, and payments and administrative services. Line management of a team of approx. 25.

The role ensures operational teams are supported, skilled, informed, and aligned, with strong control over quality, customer experience, and delivery of organisational priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Assurance, Coaching & Learning

• Own and lead the operational quality assurance framework, ensuring consistency, fairness, and defensibility of decision-making.

• Set quality standards in line with legislation, the CICA Scheme, and MoJ requirements.

• Use QA insight to identify systemic issues, risks, and improvement opportunities.

• Lead coaching, feedback, and continuous professional development activity for operational staff.

• Oversee operational training design, delivery, and evaluation, ensuring staff capability is maintained and developed.

• Work closely with Heads of Operational Delivery to embed learning into day-to-day delivery.

Communications & Engagement

• Lead internal operational communications, ensuring clear, timely, and consistent messaging to frontline teams.

• Coordinate engagement activity across Operations, supporting change, wellbeing, and staff engagement initiatives.

• Act as the operational interface with Corporate Communications, ensuring alignment of messaging.

• Support senior leaders with briefings, key messages, and engagement plans.

Business Planning & Delivery Coordination

• Coordinate the development, tracking, and delivery of the operational business plan, ensuring actions are clearly owned and progress is monitored.

• Support prioritisation, sequencing, and dependency management across operational and support activity.

• Provide assurance to senior leadership on delivery risks, progress, and mitigations.

• Ensure operational objectives align with strategic, financial, and workforce plans.

Payments & Administrative Services

• Lead teams responsible for payments processing and operational administrative support, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and compliance.

• Ensure strong controls are in place to manage financial risk, fraud prevention, and audit requirements.

• Oversee continuous improvement of payment and administrative processes to improve customer experience and efficiency.

• Act as senior escalation point for complex or sensitive payment-related issues.

Governance, Risk & Assurance

• Maintain oversight of operational risks related to quality, capability, payments, and delivery.

• Support operational audit activity, inspections, and reviews, ensuring timely and effective responses.

• Ensure operational support functions meet MoJ governance and assurance expectations.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Provide visible leadership to operational support teams, fostering a culture of professionalism, learning, and accountability.

• Build strong partnerships with Heads of Operations, Digital, Transformation, HR, Finance, and Policy teams.

• Deputise for the Director of Operations as required.

Essential criteria

• Senior leadership experience across quality assurance, learning and development, or operational support functions.

• Strong understanding of regulated operational environments and assurance requirements.

• Experience using insight and data to drive improvement in quality and performance.

• Excellent communication, engagement, and influencing skills.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in justice, compensation, or MoJ-aligned organisations.

• Background in coaching-led performance improvement or workforce capability development.

• Experience overseeing payments or financially sensitive operational processes.

How to apply

The selection process for this vacancy will utilise Civil Service Success Profiles and will assess your Experience, Behaviours and Strengths.

Stage 1

Applicants should provide a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and a Statement of Suitability of no more than 1000 words, which demonstrates evidence of the essential criteria for this role and of the behaviours listed below.

Stage 2

If successful at Stage 1, you will be invited to interview, which will incorporate a short presentation. You will be notified of the presentation topic in your invitation to interview. At the interview we will assess you against the behaviours listed below:

• Leadership

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Changing and Improving

• Communicating and Influencing

At interview you will be asked a number of behaviour and strength-based questions.

Interviews are likely to take place in May at our office at 10 Clyde Place, Buchanan Wharf, Glasgow G5 8AQ.

Following the closing date, this job advertisement will no longer be available to view. You may wish to retain a copy for your records.

A reserve list will be created and will be valid for 12 months. If further vacancies arise for this or similar roles within the organisation, candidates may be appointed from the reserve list in order of merit.

We offer flexible working 7am - 7pm, Monday to Friday. However, we ask that candidates make themselves available to attend the office on a full-time, fixed hours basis (9am to 5pm) for the initial training period which takes up to 10 weeks. This is to ensure the best training and consolidation experience for new colleagues.

This role is offered on a full-time (37 hours per week) basis.

For queries about the role, please contact our Corporate Support Team by email Corporate.Support@cica.gov.uk.

Reasonable Adjustments

Please tell us if you have a disability when you apply, and we can offer reasonable adjustments to help with the selection process.