Job title: Head of Performance Reporting Development / Head of Civil and Employment Tribunal Reporting and Analysis

Directorate: Strategy and Analysis

Workstream: Performance and Reporting

About us

His Majesty’s Court and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is an agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and provides the supporting administration for the judiciary across England and Wales.  It delivers services to the public directly in court and tribunal buildings, remotely via business centres and some services via the internet.  

HMCTS has a vision to modernise and upgrade our justice system so that it works even better for everyone, from judges and legal professionals, to witnesses, litigants, and the vulnerable victims of crime. This will help consolidate the UK’s position at the forefront of an increasingly competitive international legal market as well as ensuring access to justice for all. This is an exciting time to join the organisation and be part of work to make a real difference. 

As part of this transformation, in 2021 HMCTS published its Data Strategy, setting out its ambitions to become a truly data-driven organisation. The Strategy and Analysis (S&A) Directorate supports this strategy by enabling senior leaders to make strategic, data driven business decisions.  

The Performance and Reporting division exists to ensure HMCTS and MoJ have the performance information needed to understand and improve performance at both operational and strategic level. It is based in S&A and plays a key role in delivering the Data Strategy, and in supporting HMCTS’s overall service provision. We provide HMCTS, the MoJ and the Judiciary with timely, accurate and accessible operational management information and performance analysis that underpins strategic and operational decisions. We work on a cloud-based Strategic Data Platform using Power BI and R for the delivery of data and analysis.

About the roles

We have two exciting Grade 7 opportunities within our Performance and Reporting team. These roles will play a key part in delivering performance reporting, analysis and insight that supports effective decision‑making across HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice. Role allocation will be confirmed following appointment, based on business need and individual strengths - if you have a preference for one of the roles please make this clear in your application.

Head of Performance Reporting Development

The postholder will lead on producing and implementing our Performance Reporting Strategy including further developing our existing dashboard strategy. As part of this you will manage the delivery of new productivity metrics and their integration into performance reporting, and lead on the coordination of some of our analysis for performance deep dives.

Key responsibilities will include

• Development of the Performance Reporting Strategy, setting out plans for expanding coverage of our upward reporting and improving coherence of within-HMCTS reporting.

• Developing our dashboard strategy setting the standards and principles for key metrics we use, how we freeze data, and reporting frequency.

• Driving implementation of the Performance Reporting Strategy by working with stakeholders around HMCTS to ensure new principles are followed when performance is reported to the HMCTS Operational Performance Committee, Business Authorities and Service Boards.

• Developing specifications for new or enhanced performance reporting products where needed.

• Working with users, jurisdictional subject matter experts and data engineers to understand requirements and develop new reporting relating to aspects of HMCTS performance, such as productivity reporting.

• Support the team’s wider work on developing the analytical narrative and on briefing activities for HMCTS and MoJ performance discussions.

• A lead role on coordinating performance deep dive projects with inputs from across the division.

• Maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders in MoJ, HMCTS Operations and Service teams, and other analysts in HMCTS and MoJ.

• Ensuring our products meet quality assurance standards and that we produce and maintain all relevant documentation.

• Supervising project teams in use of modern tools and platforms including SQL, Power BI, Excel, GitHub, Trello and Azure data services.

Head of Civil and Employment Tribunal Reporting and Analysis

The postholder will lead on the delivery of management information outputs for the Civil jurisdiction/services and the Employment Tribunal, engaging with a wide range of stakeholders (including the jurisdictional Service teams, MOJ, Judiciary) to understand requirements and priorities and then working with your team to deliver them in collaboration with the data engineering team. As our core reporting products bed in and mature you will begin to develop more detailed analysis to understand performance and support the division’s performance improvement function. You will also work collaboratively with statistical teams at the MoJ to ensure consistency of information published for high-quality official statistics.

Key responsibilities will include

• Lead a team with skills in data analysis and insight to develop dashboards and reporting products.

• Lead on the continuous development and dissemination of management information, ensuring key messages are effectively communicated to stakeholders in HMCTS Service Boards and Business Authorities.

• Lead on data analysis to understand performance issues and provide insight that will drive improvement, working closely with HMCTS Operations and Service leads, MoJ analytical and policy colleagues.

• Maintaining strong relationships with senior stakeholders across MoJ, HMCTS Operations and Service teams, and other analysts in HMCTS and MoJ, to effectively manage MI requirements, priorities and issues.

• Ensuring our products meet quality assurance standards and that we produce and maintain all relevant documentation.

• Line management of two SEO analysts and one HEO analyst.

• Supervise the team in use of modern tools and platforms including SQL, Power BI, Excel, GitHub, Trello and Azure data services.

Who are we looking for? (Person Specification)

The ideal candidate for these positions should demonstrate:

Essential Skills

• Membership of one of the Government Analytical Professions.

• Experience of leading analytical work and managing people and/or projects across multiple priorities within a multi‑disciplinary environment.

• Strong knowledge and experience of:

  • data preparation, exploration and analysis

  • applying analytical and statistical methodologies to generate insight

  • producing clear written outputs and visualisations for senior audiences.

• Knowledge of using analytical and visualisation tools such as Power BI, SQL and R.

• Understanding and application of analytical quality assurance.

• Ability to work independently, managing competing priorities effectively.

• Confidence working proactively with stakeholders, understanding their requirements and constructively challenging them where necessary.

• Ability to develop and improve business processes and ways of working.

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

• Knowledge of the justice system and the work of HMCTS.

• Knowledge of building reproducible analytical pipelines, automation and version control (using GitHub).

• Knowledge of Agile ways of working and tools such as Jira and Confluence.

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 750 words).

Your Statement of Suitability should be no more than 750 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.

• Technical question - Please confirm which of the Government Analytical Professions you are a member of.

Government Analysis Function - The Government Analysis Function is a network for all civil servants working in government analysis. (civil-service.gov.uk)

We will aim to sift the CV, Statement of Suitability and Technical question but, in the event of a large number of applicants, an initial short sift may be conducted on the CV and Technical question only. Candidates who pass the initial sift of the CV and Technical question will either:

• progress to a full sift where all application assessment criteria is then assessed.

• or progress straight to interview.

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:

• Questions on technical skills - based on your analytical profession.

• Questions in relation to the following Civil Service behaviours;

  • Managing a Quality Service

  • Communicating and Influencing

  • Delivering at Pace

Travel requirements

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

For more information about the role please contact the hiring manager, Drew Hird, Drew.Hird@justice.gov.uk

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.