Service Owner

Job summary

We are MHCLG

This is an exciting opportunity to lead one of the Government's most visible and impactful digital services. As Service Owner for the Registration Service, you will shape the future of voter registration, lead multidisciplinary teams, and drive improvements that help millions of citizens engage with democracy.

The Elections Directorate is a welcoming and inclusive team responsible for a challenging and dynamic portfolio that is frequently in the public eye, covering electoral policy and law and development and delivery of a suite of digital services, including Register to Vote. We are working on an exciting programme of work to implement key manifesto commitments, through primary and secondary legislation, and digital and operational delivery. The commitments include:

• Increasing engagement of young people by enfranchising 16- and 17-year-olds.
• Improving voter registration so that more people are correctly registered to vote.
• Reforming voter identification rules to improve accessibility for all electors.

This programme includes some significant developments around electoral registration - moving towards a more automated approach to registration, making better use of central and local data and integrating voter registration into other government services, with the overall goal of making it as easy as possible for citizens to be correctly registered. In addition, extending the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds also requires changes to the existing Register to Vote service, and we are also exploring what can be done to reduce the volume of duplicate applications that are submitted, particularly in the run up to a general election. Alongside these large-scale changes, the live Register to Vote service also serves thousands of users every day, and we are continuing to iterate and improve the existing service.

Given the volume of changes, we are recruiting a Service Owner role for our registration services, which includes our flagship Register to Vote service, plus two other services, one for overseas electors and one which supports local authorities with their annual review of the electoral register.

This role will be accountable for the end-to-end delivery, performance, and continuous improvement of our registration services, and leading and co-ordinating the planned changes to ensure the services continue to work for users.

Find out more about our Digital teams and what they are working on through our MHCLG Digital blog. Please note that MHCLG do not offer visa sponsorship and applicants will need a valid visa for the duration of your employment.

Job description

As a Service Owner, you'll:

• Own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Registration Service, ensuring development is prioritised in alignment with user needs, policy goals and business requirements
• Own the success and quality metrics for the service and focus delivery on the intended outcomes and benefits
• Lead multidisciplinary teams across product, UCD, delivery, operations and data, to deliver significant changes to the service and continuous improvement, creating the right culture and environment for the team to do their best work
• Engage with in-house teams and third-party suppliers, working across organisational boundaries to ensure positive service outcomes. This includes ensuring all parties are aware of their roles and contractual obligations and are held accountable for delivery
• Champion user-centred design, accessibility, and data integrity throughout the service lifecycle
• Develop close working relationships with a range of stakeholders including policy, strategy, engagement and analytical colleagues within the Elections Directorate, Digital colleagues across MHLCG and stakeholders in the wider elections sector, building consensus around the vision and strategy for the Registration Service
• Ensure that work on the service complies with all the required governance processes, including internal programme management within the Elections Directorate and spend approvals and service assessments led by the Digital Directorate
• Work closely with our Elections Operations team to oversee risk management, including cyber security posture and IT Health Check remediations

Person specification

As a Service Owner, you'll have:

• A track record of leadership in complex digital service design and delivery, ideally in a government or regulated environment, including creating and implementing long-term service visions and strategies based on evidence and metrics
• Experience of building strong relationships with stakeholders, achieving buy in to strategy and delivery, and ability to resolve issues and tensions to enable progress
• Experience of building and managing high performing teams, delegating decision making to the most effective level, and empowering teams to deliver to the best of their abilities
• A strong understanding of service design and user-centred design principles, and experience of applying these approaches to solving problems and making strategic decisions
• Experience of assessing risks, scoping resourcing requirements, managing budgets and guiding teams through governance and assurance processes, to ensure value for money, high quality delivery and sustainable development of teams and services
• An understanding of and experience in agile methodologies, including bridging from traditional waterfall and project management approaches, and experience in working with senior stakeholders to persuade them of the benefits of agile working

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,686, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £21,057 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).At MHCLG we offer many benefits that range from tailored career pathways and flexible working to MyLifestyle Childcare Voucher and Cycle to Work Schemes. For more information, please click here.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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