Ministry of Justice

The Legal Aid Agency

We are an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). We provide civil and criminal legal aid and advice in England and Wales to help people deal with their legal problems. 

Our people are at the heart of achieving excellence. Employing around 1,200 colleagues across England and Wales, we feel proud to have some of the best People Survey results in the Civil Service.

Our LAA commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

The LAA is committed to diversity and inclusion and we positively promote flexible working, including job shares.

We will consider all applications on merit regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, religion, ethnicity, preferred working pattern and except for exceptional circumstances your working location.

As a Disability Confident organisation, we will offer a guaranteed interview to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for this role. Under the Equality Act 2010 a disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities which has lasted, or is expected to last, at least 12 months.

If you are responding to a role within the Legal Aid Agency and would like to be considered under the guaranteed interview, please indicate this in your application and let us know of any reasonable adjustments you may require during the sift or later selection processes.

Transformation

The Transformation Team are responsible for continuing to drive forward simplifying the delivery of legal aid. We want to improve the experience for the people who apply for legal aid, the providers who deliver the services and those of us in the LAA who administer the scheme, while ensuring the LAA remains a great place to work.  The team is working towards five key strategic objectives for a transformed service:

•             Improved user access: Improve share of eligible clients who are aware of & know how to access legal aid

•             Market sustainability: Ensure LAA supports sufficient legal aid capacity in all parts of UK

•             Measurable impact: Build a system that allows us to quantitatively measure the key impacts of legal aid

•             Operational efficiency: Increased operational productivity in processing of legal aid

•             Flexible & secure tech: Improve flexibility and materially improve the security of system to support fast delivery of LAA work

This team is leading the transformation of our organisation through innovation, collaboration and inclusion. Originally established in May 2020, the Transformation Team has grown rapidly over the last five years. We are a hybrid team of business change and project delivery experts, we drive and create projects to streamline our processes, reduce risks and improve the service customers receive by making our systems more user centred. Working in partnership with others is at the heart of what we do. We work together with teams across the agency, MOJ Digital, MoJ Project Delivery Function experts, MoJ Policy teams and wider stakeholders across the justice system and government.   

It is an exciting time to be in the Transformation Team as we prepare for further reforms to legal aid policy and commence work on additional areas for modernisation over the next five years and beyond.

Job Summary

We are looking for up to five individuals to join our transformation team. These roles would primarily be focused on supporting multi-disciplinary teams as Transformation Managers, whilst there may also be opportunity for an individual to join the PMO as a PMO Manager.

This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of change within the LAA. You will be responsible for working with LAA and MOJ stakeholders to ensure the smooth implementation of transformation projects within the LAA’s transformation portfolio. There will be an opportunity to work alongside Project Delivery professionals, along with key stakeholders across the business.

As a Transformation Manager, your role is critical in enabling agile delivery by actively shaping the conditions for success. The role is dynamic and adaptive – it will involve:

•             Initiating early conversations to structure problem spaces, bringing the right people together, and ensuring alignment across enabling functions like policy, operations, digital.

•             Connecting MDTs with stakeholders across the organisation, ensuring timely access to operational insight, and managing the flow of change activity.

•             Protecting teams ability to focus on delivery by prioritising and managing external commissions, in addition to representing the MDT in external forums.

•             Fixing and removing blockers by working across functions to resolve issues, reduce delivery friction, and maintain momentum.

The role centres around testing & iterating new services and processes whilst supporting change management. The individuals will have excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, organisational skills and be comfortable working in a multi-disciplinary environment to meet deadlines. They will also have an awareness of risks and issues management and the confidence to raise concerns at the earliest opportunity, taking a proactive, collaborative approach to solving problems.

As a PMO Manager, your role is centred around governance & reporting, risk management and portfolio planning. You will support in defining and maintaining the standards for project management within the portfolio. This includes the implementation and sharing of best practice as well as the development and application of project procedures, tools and techniques. You will provide guidance, and acts as a source of project information and metrics. You will have effective leadership, interpersonal and communication skills.

Key Responsibilities of a Transformation Manager:

•             Enable the delivery of the Transformation strategic objectives by supporting a multi-disciplinary team (MDT). This will involve working with colleagues across operations, policy, and digital to deliver end-to-end service transformation.

•             Identify, test and help resolve operational challenges with new systems, drawing from subject matter expertise

•             Identify requirements to train & onboard frontline staff on new systems

•             Lead business readiness and change management activities

•             Championing new products/services into the business

•             Support solution design and ideation

•             Engage and communicate with stakeholders at all levels and articulate the purpose and progress of service improvements to a range of audiences

•             Produce necessary project updates and reports for governance forums and commissions

•             Ensure risks are identified, and appropriately mitigated, and contingency plans developed 

•             Facilitating workshops/meetings with stakeholders as required;

•             Drafting and issuing communications to notify external and internal stakeholders of changes, particularly providers, staff and strategic partners;

•             Work with the Communications Manager in the enabling function to develop, produce and deliver tailored communications (verbal and written) for internal and external stakeholders e.g., operational colleagues, Trade Unions, staff networks, legal aid providers;

•             Facilitating process reviews once enablers have been embedded into the business;

•             Line management as required

Key Responsibilities of a PMO Manager:

•             Support Project/Transformation Manager in the development of Business Case with input from specialists as necessary.

•             Develop and agree budgets for projects and/or programmes and forecast actual costs against them with the support of the FBP.

•             support the Head of PMO in the identification, recruitment, development, deployment and reassignment of resources throughout the project lifecycle.

•             Advise the project team on appropriate tools and techniques for managing stakeholder relationships. Provide assurance to the project manager on the effectiveness of stakeholder management arrangements.

•             Establish the project processes and standards for managing risks and issues. Provide assurance to the projects on the effectiveness of Risk and Issue management arrangements.

•             Ensure appropriate governance is in place and lead on project progress and status reports to appropriate bodies

•             Monitor the effectiveness of controls and ensure that recommendations from external reviews are acted upon.

•             Advise and implement protocols to change the scope of projects and/or programmes and update configuration documents as required.

•             Line management as required

To note: the above list of key responsibilities is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holders will be required to undertake such tasks that may be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Essential Experience and skills

•             Supporting the delivery of transformation projects in complex environments

•             Effective relationship management experience

•             Excellent negotiating and influencing skills to engage with business leads and key stakeholders

•             The ability to simplify complexities and articulate messages to suit different audiences

•             An ability to deliver quickly and effectively to tight deadlines

•             The ability to quickly gain understanding about new subject matter and apply that understanding effectively

Desirable Knowledge, Experience and skills

•             Knowledge of the LAA, judicial system, MOJ priorities

•             Project management

•             Experience of working within a multi-disciplinary team

Person Specification

•             Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both written and verbal)

•             Effective networking skills and ability to work with a virtual team

•             A passion for what you do, friendly, proactive and ‘can-do’ approach to tasks

•             Effective time management and ability to prioritise, organise, multi-task and manage a diverse and complex workload and to work under pressure

•             Effective influencing skills, and experience of building and maintaining positive relations with internal and external stakeholders, partners and colleagues

•             Effective planning and organisation skills with excellent attention to detail

•             Effective leadership and collaborative working skills in a high-profile environment

•             Ability to operate in a value-driven style consistent with the values of the public services and specifically with MoJ and wider Civil Service values

•             Values diversity and difference; operates with integrity and openness

Assessment approach

Application Process

To apply, please provide a copy of your CV along with completing scenarios for each of the following behaviours, each behaviour should be no more than 250 words:

•             Delivering at Pace (Lead Behaviour)

•             Communicating and Influencing

•             Changing and Improving

•             Managing a Quality Service

When submitting an example of a behaviour remember to include the situation, what you did and why, and what was the outcome / result.  Insert ref to CS behaviours guidance.

Please note that if we have a large number of applications, we may complete an initial sift on the lead behaviour (delivering at pace) and may raise the pass mark to 5.

Interview / assessment Process

If you are successful through the application stage, you will be invited to an interview via Microsoft Teams where you will be assessed against the following:

•             Strengths relevant to the role

•             Some or all of the following Behaviours:

•             Delivering at Pace (Lead Behaviour)

•             Communicating and Influencing

•             Changing and Improving

•             Managing a Quality Service

•             Your Experience of implementing, promoting, or understanding diversity and inclusion policy - Diversity is the presence of difference, this can include one or more of the protected characteristics (Gender, Age, Race, Disability etc.) or it can be about working patterns, whether we like to jump into a task or reflect on it before acting. Inclusion is how we welcome, value, and celebrate diversity, giving everyone a voice, tapping into ideas, and enabling everyone to be themselves at work and achieve their potential.

For this grade/ role we would expect the candidate to demonstrate understanding of the terms Diversity and Inclusion and be able to explain why they are important to them and to where they work. Examples of action they have taken (in or outside of work) to embrace diversity (e.g., increasing understanding) or improve inclusion for others will increase the strength of their answer. 

Shortlisting is planned for week commencing 28 July 2025

Interviews are planned week commencing 18 August 2025 but may change depending on panel availability.

If you would like more information on this opportunity, please contact LAACentralRecruitmentFunction@justice.gov.uk.

Complaints procedure

If you have any complaints about this recruitment activity, please share your concerns by emailing LAACentralRecruitmentFunction@justice.gov.uk initially. We aim to respond to any complaint within 10 working days.