Ministry of Justice

Grade 6

Business Architecture and Transformation Directorate

The Business Architecture Team is recruiting permanently for a Grade 6 Head of Organisational Transformation role. This campaign is open to current civil servants and external candidates.

Location

National.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is responsible for everything that goes into running the UK’s criminal and civil justice systems, creating the foundations for a safe, fair and prosperous society. We are one of the largest government departments with around 90,000 staff based across England and Wales. We are responsible for 500 courts and tribunals, 122 prisons, the policies underpinning the system and much more.

Background

We are recruiting for a Head of Organisational Transformation role. This role will share a focus on supporting the Department around its core workforce, infrastructure, skills and capability needs in the long term, through leading major and cross-cutting transformation programmes as well as more bespoke, and potentially less-defined high-priority transformation projects. This role will support and guide decision making of the Permanent Secretary, and Ministers into the future, and to support the Government in meeting its ambitions for the Civil Service.

This is a new senior leadership role within the team.  The role will have significant management responsibility, oversight of a portfolio of work and projects, and contribute to the development of the team culture and performance – including corporately.

What we do

The Business Architecture and Transformation (BAT) Directorate sits at the heart of MoJ within the People & Capability Group. It supports and works closely with the MoJ leadership team, and in turn advises ExCo, on the people, skills, capability, resilience and infrastructure needed across the department to put us in the best possible place to deliver for the current and future Governments. We will work in partnership with the MoJ Chief Operating Officer (COO) Group, and closely alongside other functions and teams to ensure the machinery of the department is efficient but maintains a strong ‘people first’ culture.

The Business Architecture division is a core part of the BAT Directorate that helps identify opportunities and in turn formulate a strategy to improve the way services are delivered, the organisation is structured and ensure we invest in the right skills and capability for our future workforce. We work hand in hand with colleagues across the department, and closely with core People, Policy, Strategy and Strategic Finance colleagues in the preparation, delivery and implementation of fiscal and political events for the MoJ through the lens of people, infrastructure and capability.

Head of Organisational Transformation – job description

This is an exciting opportunity to be a key player in leading organisational change. You will be responsible for (among other things):

• Lead, own and coordinate major change projects, focused on department-wide Organisational Transformation, and on more bespoke or ad-hoc and high priority organisational issues
• Designing innovative solutions to complex organisational challenges, working closely with the Head of Organisational Strategy, and Head of Business Architecture to ensure solutions reflect strategic vision and capability needs of the department.
• Communicating and championing organisational needs and ambitions across senior leadership and Ministers, through strong capability for briefing, advising and drafting
• Setting the agenda for pan-MoJ Business Architecture ambitions, working closely with the agencies, arms length bodies (ALBs), functions, and other key stakeholders
• Owning and nurturing relationships with senior leaders and key stakeholders across people, strategy, strategic finance and others to ensure that cross-department ambitions are aligned to the future organisational strategy and transformation, and that decisions made are informed by this.
• Active lead in and contribute in the preparation, delivery and implementation of fiscal and political events for the MoJ through the lens of people, infrastructure and capability
• Building and leading your team, providing coaching and support to up to three Grade 7s, and ensuring quality work is progressed within your portfolio
• Being an active senior leader, engaging across the directorate and the group corporately, and assisting in setting up and maintaining corporate culture across the team.

More generally, you will have strong leadership and management skills, be the key point of contact for building Business Architecture focused relationships with colleagues across MoJ, (including in policy teams, agencies, and across the enabling functions), practice good communication through your work and ensure alignment with the scope and deliverables of the Directorate.  You will provide strategic direction to the work within your portfolio, ensuring excellence in the quality of work delivered, and being able to understand new subject areas quickly with a strong analytical and problem-solving skillset allowing you to communicate complex ideas clearly. You will do all this as well as maintaining a strong focus on the wellbeing and development of the team.

Person Specification

This Grade 6 role will be a central part of the senior management team for the Business Architecture division, working closely with the Deputy Director and key stakeholders.  We are looking for someone who is highly motivated in leading teams and building capability, with demonstrable experience of operating and delivering in a large scale and complex organisation where transformation and change are prioritised.

Essential

• Strong problem-solving skills, bringing structure to complex issues and able to draw sound conclusions. 
• Confidence in drawing on a range of evidence and analysis to deliver high-quality, innovative and inclusive advice.
• An open and engaging leader, committed to building an inclusive and high-performing culture within the team, setting strategic direction and supporting your direct reports through coaching.  
• A leader focused on personal development and wellbeing, playing an active leadership and management role across your team, directorate and the MoJ. 
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to build and maintain strong relationships, and influence across the department and beyond to ensure that the work of your team has maximum impact. Open to challenge and able to effectively navigate conflicting priorities.
• Strong prioritisation skills and the ability to make effective decisions on how to structure your work to make best use of your resources.
• The ability to impose structure on complex problems, allocate scarce resources in the context of the department’s strategy and political direction, and set-up and lead teams and bring colleagues together to reach your end goal.
• The ability to understand and articulate complex issues to senior stakeholders and ministers, drawing on your understanding of the bigger picture to ensure communications are clear, effective and relevant, and taking into account political sensitivities.

Desirable

• Experience working in a strategy, or strategic finance function within government or in the private sector.
• Experience leading on change programmes or projects in a public sector organisation.
• Experience working in the field of business architecture within government or the private sector.

Please note that whilst we don’t assess or score ‘desirable’ criteria, we may consider evidence provided that demonstrates meeting the desirable elements of the role, only after essential criteria is assessed and where there is a need to differentiate between closely scored candidates.

Qualification

• Educated to degree level (or equivalent experience), with specific interest in strategy, transformation, change, policy, delivery, or closely related fields of study.                           

Application process

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

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade (Grade 6):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles/success-profiles-civil-service-behaviours#why-we-assess-behaviours

Sift

You will need to submit an anonymised CV and Statement of Suitability as part of your application. You will also be required to provide a behaviour example, for the lead behaviour of Changing and Improving. 

Your CV should be no more than 2 pages long and should show us your work history and previous experience.  It should be well structured, succinct and written in clear language.

Your statement of suitability should be no more than 750 words. Please use your statement to explain how you are the right person for this role linking it to your skills, experience and any evidence in relation to the behaviours and essential criteria that has been outlined.                             

Should we receive a large number of applications, we will sift primarily on the statement of suitability. Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview, testing both behaviours and strengths.

Candidates Invited to Interview

During the interview, we will be assessing you on Behaviours (listed below) and Strengths from the success Profiles framework.

• Changing and Improving (lead behaviour)
• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions

You will also be required to give a five-minute presentation at interview.  Details of this will be sent to those candidates who are invited for interview. 

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

Contact information  

We encourage anyone interested in the role, particularly those with a background in strategy, futurism, workforce planning, strategic finance, organisational design and development and of course - business architecture, to reach out. 

To find out more about the role, the team and the wider ambition of the Business Architecture division, please contact the hiring manager:

Chris Macera (christopher.macera@justice.gov.uk)