Ministry of Justice

Portfolio Delivery Lead

Grade 7

The Service, Strategy and Transformation Directorate is recruiting permanently for Grade 7 Portfolio Delivery Lead. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.

Location:

Successful candidates will have the option to be based at one of the following locations:

• London
• National

We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your chosen base location.

Ways of Working

At the MoJ we believe and promote alternative ways of working, these roles are available as:

• Full-time, part-time or the option to job share
• Flexible working patterns

If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

Salary

Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.  

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)

MoJ is the largest government department, employing over 90,000 people with a budget of approximately £10 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at 500 courts and tribunals, and 133 prisons in England and Wales.

Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice

This role sits within the Service Strategy & Transformation Directorate. We are responsible for: 

• Working across the Service Transformation Group (with Justice Digital, the Legal Aid Agency, Office of the Public Guardian and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority), to understand and drive collaboration on current transformation and digital plans 

• Supporting digital development and innovation to enhance the victim experience throughout the criminal justice (CJ) process, implement recommendations from the Independent Sentencing Review and support probation workers in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) 

• Identifying, encouraging and delivering new ways of working, acting as a critical friend to delivery partners and collaborating with a wider range of stakeholders to improve experiences for those in the CJ system. 

• Identifying cross-cutting transformation opportunities across the Ministry of Justice that can drive cutting-edge digital delivery, user experience, efficiencies and delivery of policy goals 

• Baselining and supporting performance and prioritisation across the Service Transformation Group 

• Bringing together all areas of the Group to collectively create a clear and compelling narrative for delivery over the next 3-5 years.  

• Engaging across the Ministry of Justice and its agencies to gain buy-in and support for our initiatives. 

• Supporting the Director General for Service Transformation with strategic and analytical activity. 

Portfolio Delivery Lead - the role

The Portfolio Delivery Lead provides senior delivery leadership across a complex and evolving portfolio of strategic change and transformation activity. The role ensures there is a single, coherent view of delivery across multiple initiatives, enabling senior leaders to prioritise effectively, manage risk and make informed trade-offs in response to changing organisational and ministerial priorities.

The postholder operates at the intersection of strategy, delivery and performance, bringing structure, pace and transparency to complex portfolios while maintaining strong relationships with senior stakeholders across the organisation.

Key responsibilities:

Portfolio planning, prioritisation and risk management

• Develop and maintain an integrated portfolio view of major strategic and transformation initiatives, ensuring alignment to organisational objectives, spending commitments and capacity constraints.
• Support senior leaders to prioritise and sequence activity, identifying and articulating trade-offs where priorities or constraints change.
• Identify, manage and escalate cross-cutting dependencies, delivery risks and emerging pressures, ensuring issues are surfaced early and addressed collectively.
• Provide clear, evidence-based advice and options to support decision-making at senior forums.
• Support and project manage existing projects where necessary.

Delivery leadership and oversight

• Establish and operate a proportionate delivery cadence across the portfolio, including review points, escalation routes and decision tracking.
• Provide high-quality, succinct reporting and management information that supports senior oversight and accountability.
• Hold delivery leads to account for agreed milestones and outcomes, while adopting a collaborative, problem-solving approach to unblock issues and maintain momentum.
• Act as a senior representative for the Directorate in delivery, governance and prioritisation forums as required.

Strategic enablement and performance

• Support the design, implementation and embedding of effective approaches to strategic planning and performance management, ensuring delivery activity is clearly linked to strategic intent.
• Work closely with strategy, engagement, finance, workforce and performance colleagues to ensure coherence between planning, stakeholder engagement and delivery.
• Support senior leaders to adopt new or evolving ways of working by providing structure, clarity and practical delivery support.

Stakeholder management and leadership

• Build and maintain strong, constructive relationships with senior stakeholders across the Service Transformation Group and wider Ministry of Justice.
• Provide credible challenge, balancing pace and ambition with realism and sustainability.
• Promote a culture of transparency, collective ownership and delivery discipline across the portfolio.

Skills and Experience

Narrative Required

Essential:

• Significant experience leading or coordinating complex delivery portfolios, programmes or workstreams in a fast-paced and ambiguous environment.
• Strong ability to prioritise, sequence and manage competing demands, applying sound judgement to balance strategic objectives, risk and capacity.
• Confidence and credibility working with senior leaders (G6/SCS), including the ability to provide constructive challenge and influence decision-making.
• Proven ability to operate autonomously, taking responsibility for outcomes with minimal supervision.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex information clearly and concisely to senior audiences.

Desirable:

• Experience supporting strategic planning, performance management or operating model change.
• Understanding of public sector governance, finance or workforce processes.
• Experience working within federated or matrix delivery environments.

Candidates applying from HMPPS should note that the Ministry of Justice does not have the same conditions of employment as HMPPS. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful.

The MoJ is proud to be Level 3 Disability Confident. Disability Confident is the approach through which we offer guaranteed interviews for all people with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the advertised role as set out in the job description.

Application process

You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.

You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, including your CV, statement of suitability and behaviour examples, 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.

Experience

You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process outlining your career history and achievements that are relevant to the role. This will not be assessed.

You will also be asked to upload a Statement of Suitability of no more than 500 words stating, with examples, how you meet the following essential criteria:

• Significant experience leading or coordinating complex delivery portfolios, programmes or workstreams in a fast-paced and ambiguous environment.
• Strong ability to prioritise, sequence and manage competing demands, applying sound judgement to balance strategic objectives, risk and capacity.

Candidates invited to Interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

During the panel interview, you will be asked experience-based questions to explore in detail how you meet the essential and desirable criteria, and strengths-based questions to also explore what you enjoy, and your motivations relevant to the job role.

There is no expectation or requirement for you to prepare for the strengths-based questions in advance of the interview, though you may find it helpful to spend some time reflecting on what you enjoy doing and what you do well.

You can refer to the CS Strengths dictionary for more details:  Success Profiles - Civil Service Strengths Dictionary (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Interviews are expected to take place May 2026.

Annex A - The STAR method

Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.

Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.

• Where are you?
• Who was there with you?
• What had happened?

Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.

• What was the task that you had to complete and why?
• What did you have to achieve?

Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I” rather than “we” to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.

Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.

• What results did the actions produce?
• What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?
• Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?

Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.