Ministry of Justice

Senior User Researcher

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 User Researcher.

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 User Researcher - the role

In this role, you will lead user research 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 justice system. You will help the division understand the needs, behaviours, barriers and experiences of people who interact with justice services, including people who may be vulnerable, digitally excluded, legally unrepresented or facing complex problems.

You will work as part of a multidisciplinary team and will play a key role in ensuring our policy and delivery work is grounded in robust user insight, informed by wider 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 future service direction. You will also support the division to build a stronger user-centred evidence culture, ensuring that research, insight and inclusive practice are embedded in how we understand problems, develop options and assess potential interventions.

A key part of the role will be ensuring that research is conducted ethically, safely and inclusively. You will help the team make thoughtful decisions about who we involve in research, how we support participation, how we manage consent and safeguarding considerations, and how we ensure the voices of people who may face barriers to accessing justice are properly reflected in our evidence and recommendations.

In this role you will:

• Lead user research across projects aimed at understanding and reducing demand across tribunals, improving early resolution and creating clearer user journeys across Civil, Family and Tribunals services.
• Develop and deliver research plans that address complex policy, operational and service questions, ensuring research activity is proportionate, ethical, inclusive, accessible and focused on the most important decisions.
• Use a range of qualitative and, where appropriate, quantitative research methods to understand user needs, behaviours, motivations, barriers, pain points and support requirements.
• Conduct research with a diverse range of users and stakeholders, including people with lived experience of justice problems, advice providers, dispute resolution practitioners, legal professionals, operational colleagues and policy teams.
• Ensure research includes and reflects the needs of users who may experience barriers to accessing justice, including people who are digitally excluded, legally unrepresented, vulnerable, or navigating complex life events.
• Put ethical and inclusive research practice at the heart of the work, including appropriate recruitment, informed consent, accessibility adjustments, safeguarding considerations, data protection and careful handling of sensitive topics.
• Translate complex research findings into clear, actionable insights, recommendations and evidence products that inform policy development, service design, digital delivery and senior decision-making.
• Work closely with policy, service design, digital, operational, analytical, legal and HMCTS colleagues to ensure user research supports wider MoJ objectives to improve access to justice and reduce unnecessary demand.
• Collaborate with service designers, analysts and policy colleagues to combine user insight with operational data, demand evidence, performance data and wider research.
• Support the development, testing and iteration of service concepts, prototypes, signposting approaches and early resolution interventions, ensuring that user insight informs decisions throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Provide research leadership within multidisciplinary teams, helping colleagues understand how user research can support policy development, options appraisal, delivery planning and evaluation.
• Facilitate research playback sessions, workshops and collaborative sense-making activities with internal and external stakeholders.
• Develop clear and compelling written, visual and verbal outputs that help senior stakeholders understand user needs, system barriers, trade-offs and opportunities for improvement.
• Support governance and assurance across the programme by clarifying the strength of evidence, identifying research gaps, anticipating key decision points 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 user research skills, including the ability to design, conduct and analyse research that addresses complex service, policy or operational questions.
• Experience using a range of user research methods, such as interviews, usability testing, contextual research, diary studies, surveys, workshops, evidence reviews or other appropriate qualitative and quantitative approaches.
• Experience of turning research findings into clear, actionable insights and recommendations that influence decisions, service improvements, policy development or delivery priorities.
• A thoughtful and inclusive approach to research, including the ability to involve users with a wide range of needs, circumstances and access requirements.
• Experience working in multidisciplinary teams, bringing together policy, digital, operational, analytical, legal, design or delivery perspectives to solve complex problems.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and facilitation skills, including the confidence to work with senior leaders, delivery partners and external stakeholders in complex or sensitive environments.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain research findings clearly and compellingly through written, visual and verbal products for senior stakeholders and decision-makers.
• Strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work confidently in ambiguity, identify evidence gaps, prioritise research activity and make sound recommendations.
• Inclusive leadership skills, including the ability to support and influence colleagues from different professions, backgrounds and levels of seniority.
• An understanding of accessibility, ethics, safeguarding and the importance of conducting research responsibly with people who may be vulnerable or experiencing difficult life circumstances.

Desirable

• Experience working on public services, justice services, advice services, dispute resolution, digital transformation or services supporting people through complex life events.
• Awareness of the Government Service Standard, user-centred design principles, agile delivery, product development or digital delivery lifecycles.
• Experience conducting research in complex systems where user needs, policy objectives, operational constraints and legal requirements need to be balanced.
• Experience combining user research with other forms of evidence, such as analytical data, operational insight, academic evidence, service performance data or stakeholder expertise.
• Experience working with policy teams to integrate user insight into strategy, policy development, options appraisal, ministerial advice or implementation planning.
• Experience supporting organisational change, service transformation, demand reduction or early resolution in a complex system.

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 leading or contributing to user research in a complex environment
• How you use research, evidence, user insight and data to inform service improvements, policy development or delivery decisions
• How you work with multidisciplinary teams and senior stakeholders
• How you approach inclusive, accessible, ethical and user-centred research
• How you would help CFT Demand and Early Resolution improve access to justice, support earlier resolution and reduce unnecessary demand across tribunals

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.

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

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.