Ministry of Justice UK
Service Designer (Ref: 21659)

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Job Summary
This position is based nationally.
Job Description
Introduction
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.
Job Description
We’re looking for a Service Designer who is passionate about designing digital services that are simple enough for everyone to use. You’ll play a key role in building our capability to design and continuously iterate world-class, user-centred, inclusive services for internal and external users. The Digital Delivery team at HMCTS is redesigning and rebuilding our courts and tribunal services around the needs of our users – ensuring our services are accessible, easy to use, digital (where necessary and appropriate) and well supported for all users.
Within Digital Delivery, the User-Centred Design team works with HMCTS projects and programmes to support our core design principle of being user-led in everything we do. As a service designer, you’ll work closely with user researchers, analysts and frontline staff to understand pain points for our internal and external users, then design, test and iterate consistent ways to fix these issues. This role will involve leading on the service design for a product or service, working with interaction design, content design and user research professionals to deliver user-centred solutions.
Key Responsibilities
We are looking for a service designer with an interest in:
- Designing systems based on user needs who can identify the simplest of a variety of approaches
- Interpreting the needs of technical and business stakeholders and managing stakeholder expectations to influence user-centred change
- Making and recommending decisions, building consensus between services or independent stakeholders around user-centred solutions to design challenges
- Bringing people together to form a motivated team
- Identifying, communicating and working within constraints, challenging the validity of constraints when appropriate and ensuring HMCTS and cross-government design and service standards are being met
You’ll be expected to:
- Design services that work for different users across the various channels we offer for court and tribunals service journeys, developing service journey maps, service blueprints and high-level prototypes
- Work with judges, operational leaders, technical teams and other key stakeholders to facilitate the co-design process; developing a deep understanding of their needs, managing expectations and agreeing service propositions
- Work as an embedded team member within agile delivery teams, helping manage and visualise outcomes, prioritise work and develop service roadmaps from minimum viable products to full live services
- Be an active member of HMCTS’ user-centred design community, collaborating with others and using your experience and specialist knowledge to coach and mentor others
- Support other designers and take an active role in your own development, building your experience through shadowing, goal-setting, coaching/mentoring and developing a wider understanding of design approaches, tools and techniques and what’s appropriate for different settings
- Actively participate in user research, factoring research findings into actionable insight to inform service development
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Essential Skills
- You’ll be comfortable working with other research or design professionals to help key stakeholders understand the importance and value of a user-centred approach to designing court and tribunals services
- You’ll understand the need for evidence- and context-based design, using insights from research to find, test and refine the best solutions to meet user and business needs across whole user journeys
- You’ll advise teams on tools, teams and methods needed to solve user problems and support our growing community of practice, advocating for user-centred approaches across HMCTS
- You’ll have the opportunity to help build the UCD profession at HMCTS and be part of creating the right conditions for supportive communities of practice to grow and thrive - and can expect support for your own growth and development as a design practitioner in government.
- You’ll evaluate new and existing services against strategies, frameworks, design systems and policies to ensure that user and business requirements are met - and explain to teams what happens if they aren’t.
- You’ll work closely with other designers, researchers, analysts and technical experts to help our users complete their goals quickly and easily; minimising support costs (and other failure demand) as well as improving efficiency and reducing the time needed to process applications.
Introduction
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.
Essential Skills
- You’ll be comfortable working with other research or design professionals to help key stakeholders understand the importance and value of a user-centred approach to designing court and tribunals services
- You’ll understand the need for evidence- and context-based design, using insights from research to find, test and refine the best solutions to meet user and business needs across whole user journeys
- You’ll advise teams on tools, teams and methods needed to solve user problems and support our growing community of practice, advocating for user-centred approaches across HMCTS
- You’ll have the opportunity to help build the UCD profession at HMCTS and be part of creating the right conditions for supportive communities of practice to grow and thrive - and can expect support for your own growth and development as a design practitioner in government.
- You’ll evaluate new and existing services against strategies, frameworks, design systems and policies to ensure that user and business requirements are met - and explain to teams what happens if they aren’t.
- You’ll work closely with other designers, researchers, analysts and technical experts to help our users complete their goals quickly and easily; minimising support costs (and other failure demand) as well as improving efficiency and reducing the time needed to process applications.


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Person specification
Please Refer To Job Description
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Communicating and Influencing
- Changing and Improving
- Making Effective Decisions
Alongside your salary of £42,914, HM Courts and Tribunals Service contributes £12,432 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Benefits
- Access to learning and development
- A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
- A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
- Annual Leave
- Public Holidays
- Season Ticket Advance
For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.
Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets
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