Head of Transition and Service Design - Technology - Counter Terrorism Policing HQ
Job Title: Head of Transition and Service Design - Technology - Counter Terrorism Policing HQ
Salary: The starting salary is £90,336, which includes allowances totalling £2,928.
The salary is broken down as £87,408 basic salary, which will increase annually until you reach the top of the scale £96,341 Plus, a location allowance of £1,928 and a non-pensionable allowance of £1,000.
Location: West Brompton
Job Summary
The Head of Transition and Service design would lead a team dedicated to design the end-to-end journey of a service. This helps a user complete their goal and CTP deliver a policy intent in relation to technical complex solutions. In this role, your work will involve the creation of, or change to, transactions, products and content across both digital and offline channels provided by different parts of CTP HQ and partner organisations.
The post holder will work flexibly and work on IT solutions into the DDaT and Change portfolios as required by the CTPHQ Head of Technology and may work on, or provide oversight of, multiple programmes/projects at any time depending on the scale and complexity. The post holder may also work on collaborative / joint Service Design/Transition activities with our CT partner agencies.
The role will work closely with the Head of Delivery, the Head of ICT, the ICT SLT, Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) and Project Executives, Programme Directors (for significant programmes) and other CTPHQ Unit Heads, e.g. Head of Strategy and Head of Finance.
A head of Service Design and Transition is an expert practitioner with broad industry experience, who can define and assure best practice while influencing, leading and mentoring others.
At this role level, you will:
- influence both design and organisational strategy and priorities
- collaborate with counterpart colleagues across government
- focus on ensuring the right conditions and environment for designers to work effectively
This role is responsible for the planning and co-ordination of resources to ensure that services are effectively transitioned into service operation. At this level, you will be solely responsible for the co-ordination activities across projects, suppliers and service teams.
The Technology Pillar operates to a matrix management model so as a Band S Programme Manager the post holder will directly line manage a number of Service Design and Transition SME’s (both contract and FTE).
A head of service design and transition is an expert practitioner with broad industry experience, who can define and assure best practice while influencing, leading and mentoring others.
Key Result Area One
What: Responsible for the planning and co-ordination of resources to ensure that services are effectively transitioned into service operation.
How: Leading the CTP HQ Service Design and Transition team to define standards, best practice and the correct processes to successfully transition highly complex and technical services from project delivery teams into live operation. Managing a team of FTE and contract specialists to work closely with project and support SME’s to ensure risks are mitigated and the receiving support team are resourced accordingly both now and in future years.
Why: With over twenty technical services requiring transition leadership and management every year, without this role and expertise, there is a high risk of technology failure and subsequent operational failure for the services being transitioned. Without this role, the receiving function (CSC) and the wider Technology Delivery function will continue to operate on a contractor/consultant heavy approach meaning ongoing high capital/revenue costs to the organisation and a continued reliance on Single Point of Failure (SPoF) consultancy resources to support the services.
Key Result Area Two
What: At this level, you will be solely responsible for the service design and transition related co-ordination activities across projects, suppliers and service teams. You are expected to be a senior leader across technical, project delivery and support teams, by leading on all Transition matters and being responsible for their successful transition.
How: By being a senior leader across the multi-discipline teams, being able to define transition standards clearly and understanding the technical complexities of each respective project. Having the ability to communicate well, manage diverse stakeholder needs, and define complex processes into an easy to understand go-live lifecycle is critical in achieving this result area. Understanding the project/programme and support requirements (technical, resourcing, financial etc.) is key, alongside the ability to manage risks relating to all these areas from a transition perspective. This role holder will define the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for each service from a transition perspective so all involved understand their role in the process and what a successful outcome looks like.
Why: Historically, without this role in place, there is an ongoing issue in relation to projects and support services working closely together to align their goals and resultant end state of services in transition. This role works to bring all teams closer together from an early stage and ensure all dependent requirements are met from all parties to avoid services transitioning with critical risks attributed to them, alongside the resultant resourcing issues that are currently faced without this strategic role planning the support headcount against the expected project/programme requirements.
Key Result Area Three
What: Ensure there is a working agile release train, a life-cycle for products, and roadmap of all services, enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.
How: Understanding each product, from those in live operation to the earliest stages of development within CTP’s DevSecOps environments. Underpin the change management of each product while working closely with the DevSecOps Team and Product Owners to manage the release of new changes and future iterations of services. Defining the change management process for each product/project and working closely with service operations to ensure any changes and associated dependencies are carefully managed as well as being adequately resourced. Defining and updating all relevant agile working processes to reflect changes made with the product and also having a strategic roadmap for all planned changes so dependencies can be managed, alongside any future recruitment requirements.
Why: Without a strong ownership on changes and product developments, the link between DevSecOps, support teams and the operational Product Owners becomes fragmented, leading to a lack of process and delay in releasing updates into live operation. This role acts as the central point for all updates and product changes, whilst ensuring any changes are fed into the wider support roadmap with adequate resourcing in place, alongside ensuring the support function correctly understand the support requirement to minimise any disruption. This role is key in bridging the technical gap between these teams with the role holders technical and business understanding.
Key Result Area Four
What: Set strategic design direction and assure the quality of design delivery across teams
How: By providing clear design direction and being at the forefront of cross Government design decisions relating to services on both low and high classifications. A strong understanding of prototyping, coding and design methodology (both internal and external) will allow this role holder to ensure that any product, service or project is being delivered to a design standard which incorporates critical areas such as accessibility (e.g. WCAG), non-functional requirements, security and testing across the strategic development/software stack. The role holder will be expected to incorporate the assurance function into various stage gates of project delivery and align with the agile methodology to ensure designs are validated at the correct stage in the lifecycle.
Why: With more applications, products and services being expected to work across classifications and be a mix of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) and in house developed, having a strategic technical design is critical in ensuring a high level of standard is being met by all delivery teams. Ensuring a common (high quality) standard, it will allow projects, suppliers, user researchers, developers and more to be fully aligned to the CTP HQ Technical design expectations which will likely avoid additional delay and spend for projects as it will be a known quantity with quality checks defined within each project/service lifecycle.
Key Result Area Five
What: Lead and develop the end to end journey of a service on multiple or highly complex services
How: By being a subject matter expert and working with project, service and support teams, the role holder will ensure the end to end journey of the associated work is defined, followed and correctly transitioned into live operation. The role holder will work closely with User Researcher and Business Analysts (as well as the business) to develop a strong understanding of the user journey/process flow across a product and service. This in turn will allow the role holder to work closely with project, technical and support teams to define the product, the end to end journey and the associated support expectations in line with the agreed design.
Why: Developing a product, project or service is only useful if the end to end journey and service design meets the stated business requirement. Due to the reliance on governance and business cases within CTP HQ, it is likely to take a degree of time to progress from “idea/statement of intent” to a full project delivery stage. Therefore this role and associated output is critical to CTP HQ and the user community to ensure the common thread of the end to end journey for a service/project is a known quantity from the earliest stage of the lifecycle and communicated to all affected teams on a regular basis. This will in turn ensure that the journey is at the forefront of the design, project and support, working hand-in-glove with the DevSecOps element when making changes to the eventual product in live service.
Vetting
This post requires access to the most sensitive intelligence material on a daily basis. Applicants must hold or be prepared to undergo National Security Vetting (NSV) Developed Vetting (DV) level before taking up the post.
This post requires British nationality (some dual nationals may be ineligible) and an Enhanced Security Check (eSC)/Developed Vetting (DV)] clearance.
As the post holder will have access to very sensitive information, there are limitations on travelling to a small number of countries and we will undertake additional security checks as part of the recruitment process. Applications from candidates with close connections to certain countries may take considerably longer to process, or in some cases result in a withdrawal of an offer of employment. Further details will be provided at the conditional offer stage.
Confidentiality Agreement
Applicants should also be aware of the need to sign a confidentiality agreement on taking up the post.
Our Employee Commitments
Counter Terrorism Policing aims to create an inclusive and welcoming atmosphere and culture and an environment where all our people feel a strong sense of belonging and are able to reach their full potential. Where any group or individual can be and feel respected, supported and valued to fully participate and contribute to our mission of “Working to keep people safe from Terrorism”.
Inclusion, diversity and equality is at the front and centre of our approach to make the composition of Counter Terrorism Policing more representative of the communities we serve. As Counter Terrorism is rooted in Local Policing, to tackle today’s complex policing challenges, applications from across all communities are therefore essential and encouraged. Counter Terrorism Policing as a network is committed to ensuring that disabled people and those with long-term health conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations’.
Counter Terrorism Policing is committed to creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are seeking flexible working arrangements, including part time working or job share. In addition, this role has been reviewed following learning from work during the Covid pandemic and may be done in an agile manner. In the first instance, please contact the vacancy holder to discuss how such arrangements could be accommodated (where applicable).
How to apply
Click the apply now button below and start your career at the Met. Applications will be via a detailed CV and online application form.
Completed applications must be submitted by 23:55 on 16th May 2025.
Once received, your application will be reviewed against eligibility criteria, following this, your application will be reviewed by the hiring manager. The application review for this vacancy will commence 1-2 weeks after the vacancy has closed.
Following application review, successful candidates will be invited to interview. Interview dates will commence 2-3 weeks after the hiring managers review,