Job role: User Inclusion Strategy & Engagement Lead

Grade: G7

FTA Duration: 12 months

Location: National

About us

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales. Our roles support our service users and colleagues, where people and businesses access potentially life-changing justice.  We’re looking for individuals who are committed to public service and want to make a difference in people’s lives in delivering justice. If you’re interested in developing a career with a real purpose, please apply.

About the team

The Strategy and User Insight division drives HMCTS’ direction and decision-making.  We do this by using our collective expertise to develop HMCTS priorities which have users at heart. This is done through:   

• Strategy and planning that supports the organisations vision and purpose  

• Using insight and evidence to guide service delivery and continuous improvement, helping enable access to justice for all  

• Providing a range of expertise including on innovation, inclusion, workforce planning and evaluation 

This role sits in the User Inclusion Team. Our purpose is to improve access to justice by enabling HMCTS to design and deliver inclusive services as well as support for vulnerable users.  We do this through:  

• Cross jurisdictional strategic approaches 

• Designing, testing and iterating solutions that remove barriers to justice 

• Facilitating public user engagement to inform strategy, design and delivery 

• Providing SME advice on inclusion, vulnerability and equality.  

About the role

As User Inclusion Strategy & Engagement Lead you will lead a team with responsibility for developing HMCTS’s user strategy and managing our engagement with public users.

The focus of the team for the next 9-12 months is the design and development of the digital support service. To ensure that all users can access HMCTS digital services, HMCTS offers a support service for digitally excluded users (those with no access to technology or digital skills and confidence). Based on lessons learned from the current service we are exploring providing a broader range of support for digitally excluded users and delivery through a grant-based model (currently the service is funded by a contract) to enable us to utilise the expertise of the advice and support sector in supporting our users. You will lead on the design of the future service and development of the Outline Business Case to secure agreement on the way forward and onward competition to market. You will work to hand over the future service to the live service management team (also within the User Inclusion Team) who will mobilise and manage the service. You will also respond to other user-based issues that arise which need strategic consideration.

You will also co-ordinate our public user engagement which enables us to hear the voices of those users who are most likely to feel the impact of changes to our services. Our engagement takes place at a strategic HMCTS wide perspective and at a jurisdictional level aiming to facilitate effective collaboration with third sector stakeholders to improve the design and delivery of our services. We work with a mix of organisations who provide advice or support for those who use the courts and tribunal. This involves the delivery of five public user engagement groups. The insight we gain through this engagement directly informs the development of HMCTS user centred strategy, design and delivery of our services.

Your role as the User Inclusion Strategy & Engagement Lead encompasses several key aspects (but not limited to):

• Responsible for leading the development of the future digital support service, based on robust evidence and market engagement.

• Develop the future digital support service business case and navigate the appropriate governance route.

• Develop an evidence base around user needs, engagement feedback, service performance data and operational feedback to develop user-based strategies

• Provide a user focused insight from a HMCTS perspective to MOJ Policy and HMCTS service design and delivery.

• Work with the HMCTS Strategy Unit, to ensure user needs are understood across all HMCTS strategies.

• Work across other government departments to understand best practice and share lessons learned around user-based issues.

• Oversee the delivery of the five HMCTS public user engagement groups (strategic, crime, civil, family and tribunals).

• Manage relationships with external organisations who are members of engagement groups or in our signposting database.

• Ensure that feedback informs the development of cross service standards and service specific improvements.

• Line management of a team (currently SEOx2, HEO, EO)

Other duties

You will be required to work in a flexible way and undertake any other duties reasonably requested by line management which are commensurate with the grade and level of responsibility of the posts.

Who are we looking for? (Person Specification)

The ideal candidate for this position should demonstrate:

Essential

• Experience in the development of services for users or user-based strategies.

• Experience in using evidence and insight to inform service and strategy development.

• Accomplished communicator with strong stakeholder/relationship management skills, with a successful track record of influencing and negotiating sometimes challenging conversations with various stakeholders of the business in order to achieve user focused outcomes.

• Excellent organisational skills, with proven experience of organising engagement channels, meetings and events.

• Excellent time management skills, creating own work schedules, preparing in advance and setting realistic timescales for oneself and others.

• A positive approach to problem solving.

• A passion to improve the accessibility of services for the end user.

Desirable

• Experience in writing business cases.

• Experience in grant management.

• Experience in championing the user voice and/or equality and inclusion across an organisation.

• Experience of third sector advice or support organisations.

• Experience in managing a team.

• Knowledge or experience of courts and tribunals services, or the wider justice landscape.

Further details

There will be a requirement to travel occasionally to London and other HMCTS sites in line with business needs.  

Fixed Term Appointments (FTA) on Promotion  

MoJ employees may apply for FTA opportunities in MoJ that are advertised at a higher grade than their current substantive grade. Where an employee accepts an FTA on promotion, this promotion will be temporary, and the employee will revert to their substantive grade upon return to their home business area, as per the loan policy for OGD loans. Before applying, employees must seek approval from their line managers to ensure they can be released for the duration of the FTA and can return to their substantive role at the end. If there is no role available at the end of the FTA, the employee will be subject to redeployment and potentially redundancy procedures. 

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.