Senior Policy Designer

Grade 7

Civil, Family, Tribunals and Administration of Justice

The CFT Demand and Early Resolution Division in Civil, Family, Tribunals and Administration of Justice is recruiting permanently for a Grade 7 Senior Policy Designer.

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:

1. 102 Petty France, London

2. 5 Wellington Place, Leeds

For Policy Group to meet its evolving business needs, all Policy Group staff are expected to attend their base location, 102 Petty France or 5 Wellington Place Leeds, at least 2 days a week. This hybrid working arrangement is not contractual and, as a result, staff could be asked to attend their base location more frequently.

Ways of Working

At the MoJ we believe in and promote alternative ways of working. This role is available as:

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

• Flexible working patterns

• Flexible working arrangements between base locations, MoJ Hubs, and home

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 on 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

The Ministry of Justice is one of the largest government departments, employing over 90,000 people, including people in the Probation Service, with a budget of approximately £9.5 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK, including courts and tribunals, prisons, probation, and access to justice services.

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

The work of CFT Demand and Early Resolution

The Civil, Family and Tribunals justice system plays a critical role in supporting individuals and businesses to resolve disputes fairly and efficiently. However, the system can be complex and difficult to navigate, with many users experiencing challenges in accessing early advice and resolution.

The CFT Demand and Early Resolution Division sits within the Civil, Family, Tribunals and Administration of Justice and works across the Civil, Family and Tribunals jurisdictions. We are responsible for developing and delivering a strategic programme of work focused on reducing demand across tribunals, improving access to justice and supporting earlier resolution of disputes. This includes applying user-centred design approaches to understand the drivers of legal disputes and identify interventions that support earlier resolution in the civil and family courts and tribunals. It also includes supporting the work of the Online Procedure Rule Committee to create user-friendly rules that support HMCTS online services and promote earlier resolution.

The division works at the intersection of policy, user-centred design, digital delivery, operational reform and external engagement. We work closely with HMCTS, MoJ Digital, analytical and legal colleagues, the senior judiciary, advice providers, dispute resolution sectors, practitioners, wider government and external partners. Our work is central to transforming the CFT system and supporting a justice system that is easier for users to navigate, better connected and more responsive to people’s needs.

Senior Policy Designer - the role

In this role, you will lead user-centred policy design activity across a portfolio of high-profile work to improve early resolution and reduce avoidable demand across tribunals and the wider Civil, Family and Tribunals system. You will help policy teams frame complex problems, understand the needs and behaviours of users and system actors, test assumptions, and translate evidence into practical policy options and interventions.

The focus is on applying user-centred design methods to complex policy problems at an earlier stage of development, where the problem, evidence base, policy levers and potential interventions may still be uncertain. You will help the division move from broad strategic challenges to clearer problem definitions, stronger evidence, better options and more deliverable recommendations.

You will work as part of a multidisciplinary team and will play a key role in ensuring our policy work is grounded in user needs, informed by evidence, aligned with strategic objectives, and capable of being delivered across complex institutional and operational environments.

You will be expected to operate confidently in ambiguity, working across organisational boundaries and helping senior leaders make informed decisions about policy direction, prioritisation and delivery choices. You will also support the division to build a stronger user-centred policy culture across the directorate and wider policy group, ensuring that design methods, evidence, systems thinking and inclusive practice are embedded in how we understand problems, develop policy options and assess possible interventions.

In this role you will:

• Lead user-centred policy design to reduce tribunal demand, improve early resolution and support better user journeys across Civil, Family and Tribunals services.

• Apply design methods to help policy teams frame complex problems, test assumptions and turn evidence into clear policy options, interventions and recommendations.

• Facilitate workshops and collaborative policy design sessions with internal and external stakeholders, including policy teams, operational teams, advice and dispute resolution sectors, practitioners and, where appropriate, representatives of the judiciary.

• Work with user researchers and analysts to ensure policy options are informed by robust evidence about user needs, behaviour, barriers, demand, service performance and system impact.

• Develop clear and compelling visual and written outputs that help senior stakeholders understand complex problems, user journeys, system dynamics, trade-offs and policy choices.

• Support the development and testing of early policy concepts, intervention ideas and prototypes, ensuring that learning is captured and used to inform future policy and delivery decisions.

• Help ensure policy options are inclusive, accessible and designed around the needs of a diverse range of users, including people who may be vulnerable, digitally excluded, legally unrepresented or facing complex problems.

• Identify opportunities for collaboration and shared learning across Whitehall, the wider justice system, England and Wales, and international jurisdictions developing innovative approaches to digital justice, early resolution, policy design and access to justice.

• Support governance and assurance across the programme by anticipating key decision points, clarifying design evidence and ensuring stakeholders are sufficiently briefed to make informed decisions.

• Build strong and credible relationships with senior leaders, including Directors, Deputy Directors, Ministers’ Private Offices and external partners.

• Contribute to the leadership of the division by role modelling inclusive, confident and collaborative leadership, helping create a positive, high-performing and learning-focused culture.

Skills and Experience

In this role you should be able to demonstrate the following.

Essential

• Strong policy design skills, including the ability to apply user-centred design methods to complex, ambiguous policy, strategy, reform or delivery problems.

• Strong problem-framing and systems-thinking skills, including the ability to understand complexity, identify root causes, test assumptions and develop practical recommendations.

• Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams, bringing together policy, digital, operational, analytical, legal, research, design or delivery perspectives to solve complex problems.

• A thoughtful and inclusive approach to policy development, using research, data, evidence and lived experience to develop options that work for people with a wide range of needs and circumstances.

• Excellent stakeholder engagement, facilitation and communication skills, including the ability to influence senior stakeholders and turn complex information into clear written, visual and verbal products.

• Strategic thinking and inclusive leadership skills, with the ability to work confidently in ambiguity, support colleagues from different backgrounds and make sound recommendations.

Desirable

• Awareness of user-centred design principles, the Government Service Standard, agile delivery, product development or digital delivery lifecycles.

• Experience using policy design or design-thinking tools such as problem statements, journey maps, systems maps, personas, prototypes, hypotheses, design principles, options frameworks or theory of change models.

• Experience working with policy teams to integrate user insight and design evidence into strategy, policy development, options appraisal, ministerial advice or implementation planning.

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.

At application stage, you will be asked to provide:

• A CV, setting out your career history and achievements that are relevant to the role.

• A Statement of Suitability of no more than 750 words, explaining what you would bring to the role with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.

In your statement, you may wish to cover:

• Your experience of applying user-centred design, policy design or design-thinking methods to complex policy problems

• How you use evidence, user insight and data to shape policy options, interventions or strategic recommendations

• How you work with multidisciplinary teams and senior stakeholders

• How you approach inclusive, accessible and user-centred policy development

Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview testing behaviours, strengths and experience.

Candidates invited to interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

During the panel interview, you will be asked:

• Behaviour-based questions to explore in detail what you are capable of and how you have worked in previous roles.

• Strength based questions to assess your motivation, natural working style and how you are likely to respond to the demands and opportunities of the role.

• A 5-minute presentation to test how your research approach generated insight, influenced decisions and improved outcomes for users. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

The behaviours assessed at interview will be:

• Leadership

• Seeing the Big Picture

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

Success Profiles: Civil Service behaviours - GOV.UK

Strengths:

It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this. Further information on Civil Service Strengths can be found via this link Success Profiles: Strengths - GOV.UK

Interviews are expected to take place mid to late August.

Near Miss Appointment

At interview stage, if candidates do not score high enough to be appointed to a G7 role, but have passed the minimum requirements, they could be offered a role at SEO where an appropriate vacancy is available.

Contact information

Please get in touch with Antonio Perra (Antonio.perra@justice.gov.uk) if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team.

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.