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General Information

Salary
The national salary range is £42,914 - £46,182, London salary range is £49,325 - £53,081. Your salary will be dependent on your base location
Working Pattern
Full Time, Part Time, Part Time/Job Share, Flexible Working
Vacancy Approach
Internal
Location
National
Region
National
Closing Date
05-Dec-2025
Post Type
Detached Duty, Loan
Civil Service Grade
SEO
Number of jobs available
3
Reserve List
12 Months
Job ID
12034

Descriptions & requirements

Job description

Job title: SEO Senior Commissioning Manager (Mobilisation and Transition) 

Directorate: Chief Financial Officer Directorate   

Workstream: Commissioning Team, Contracted Services Division 


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 role 

Background 

This advertised role sits within the commissioning function of Contracted Services Division. Experience of contract management is therefore not essential. 

The Contracted Services Division is part of HMCTS Chief Financial Officer Directorate. It is an exciting, fast-paced and rewarding place to work with responsibilities for a range of high- profile activities. These include the operational contract management of key outsourced services supporting HMCTS and the wider MoJ, as well as overseeing the procurement of new contracts and re-procurement of existing contracts to ensure we purchase the right services with the best value for money.  

This is a positive, supportive working environment and one which champion developing staff, diversity, inclusion and equality, and encourages views and input from under-represented groups to support teamwork and deliverables. 

The Contracted Services Division has two distinct functions:  

1) The ‘live services’ function provides day-to-day operational contract management of key contracted services which support HMCTS and MoJ operational delivery. 

2) The commissioning function which oversees and leads procurement of complex and/or large-scale contracts, including those of a transformative and innovative nature 

The Team 

The Language Services Mobilisation and Transition team works in close collaboration with project, commercial, operations, finance and live services contract management teams to mobilise complex outsourced services for HMCTS and the wider MOJ. 

Our key responsibilities include:   

  • Supporting procurement through mobilisation and transition into operational use and live service contract management. 
  • Working closely with Workstream Leads and Suppliers to ensure services are fully transitioned and operational.  
  • Engaging with the Business Change Managers and Operational colleagues to manage change activities effectively. 
  • For procurements of significant scale or complexity, the team works alongside project delivery colleagues to implement innovation and improve the value for money in existing arrangements.  

The team also leads and enables continuous improvement activity across HMCTS and MoJ, ensuring the benefits of outsourced services are maximised. 

The Project 

The Language Services project supports a critical service within HMCTS, enabling the Ministry of Justice to meet its statutory duties to provide access to justice by ensuring participants for whom English is not their first language understand proceedings. The MoJ Language Service contracts are responsible for delivering a consistent and appropriate standard of service to courts, tribunals, and a wide range of other justice organisations. 

Job Description 

As part of the Mobilisation and Transition team within the commissioning function, you will be responsible for supporting the Head of Commissioning and the wider team. Your responsibilities will include leading specific workstreams, with a focus on leading mobilisation and transition activity for new language services provision. You will help deliver within a complex environment and may also have line management responsibility. 

 

The role includes:   

  • Building and maintaining strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders and driving engagement to effectively mobilise and transition from current to new services. 
  • Leading theme-based activities to identify and map risks, issues and dependencies across mobilisation and transition workstreams to ensure delivery within tight timescales.  
  • Providing regular updates and reports to the senior leadership team, including preparing and presenting reports to various forums such as project boards. 
  • Actively contributing to workstream management meetings to support successful delivery of defined key activities and milestones within the agreed timescales. 

Other responsibilities may include contributing to submissions, general project support and contributing to corporate activities.   


This role will provide you with an opportunity to work alongside a project team with a range of internal and external stakeholder groups.    


Main Activities/Responsibilities 

The successful candidate will be required to undertake the following duties and responsibilities:    

  • Coordinate activities with internal and external stakeholders to implement change by documenting constraints, removing barriers to delivery, embedding new ways of working, and ensuring a smooth handover to operations and Live Services. 
  • Provide ownership and leadership of a complex workstream, lead supplier and business engagement, align priorities and ways of working, and ensuring activities and milestones are delivered to the required standard and within agreed timescales. 
  • Ensure effective governance and proactive risk management by providing regular progress, risk and issue updates, maintaining the RAID log, escalating issues through the agreed governance route, and managing interdependencies across lots and suppliers by coordinating with Workstream Leads and reviewing deliverables against acceptance criteria. 
  • Support business readiness and transition by contributing to handover assessments, resolving post‑implementation issues, and leading lessons learned and retrospective activities to drive continuous improvement. 

Who are we looking for? (Person Specification) 

The ideal candidate for this position should demonstrate:  

Essential 

  • The ability to lead work independently with minimal direction and collaboratively within a team.  
  • Experience of establishing and maintaining strong, collaborative, and productive relationships across diverse stakeholders and with senior leaders. 
  • Demonstrable experience of leading successfully in a fast-paced environment. 
  • Strong planning skills and an ability to deliver quickly within multi-faceted workloads and meet deadlines 
  • Experience with Microsoft Office applications (Teams, Excel, Word and Powerpoint). 

Desirable 

  • Experience of working in a business change, commercial, or contract management environments 
  • Experience of aligning workstreams with wider business priorities 

How to apply  

Application Stage  

Please submit  

  • An anonymised CV. Please ensure your CV is uploaded in a simple format to prevent any formatting issues when it's downloaded or reviewed. 
  • Statement of suitability demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria (up to 750 words) 

Please ensure you cover both ‘what’ you do but also ‘how’ you do it. (i.e., the effective skills, knowledge & experience needed to undertake the role) 

Interview Stage 

If successful at sift, you will be invited to attend a remote interview, via Microsoft teams. During your interview, you will be assessed against the following Civil Service Success Profiles which will include:  

Question(s) in relation to the following Civil Service Behaviours: 

  • Delivering at Pace 
  • Working Together 
  • Communicating and Influencing 

Further details   

Near Miss 

This campaign will also operate a near miss option where, at interview stage, if candidates do not meet the requirements to be appointed to a SEO role but have passed the minimum requirements for a HEO role, they could be offered a role at HEO level. 

 

Working hours 

 

This role requires a minimum of 30 working hours per week to meet operational needs. While term-time only contracts are not available, we are committed to supporting flexible working arrangements wherever possible. 

Travel requirements 

The successful candidate may be required to travel to HMCTS HQ,102 Petty France, London on an ad-hoc basis in line with business needs. The role will also require infrequent travel to other national premises as required. 

 

Opportunities for development 

 

HMCTS is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities. 

 

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. 

Additional Information

Working Arrangements & Further Information

The MoJ offers Hybrid Working arrangements where business need allows. This is an informal, non-contractual form of flexible working that blends working from your base location, different MoJ sites and / or from home (please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK and not overseas). All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity.

Some roles will not be suitable for Hybrid Working. Similarly, Hybrid Working will not suit everyone’s circumstances. Arrangements will be discussed and agreed with the successful candidate(s) and subject to regular review.

For nationally advertised roles: All successful candidates will be appointed to the nearest viable office nearest to their home postcode and on its respective pay scale.  This will be at either a HQ building (subject to desk allocation, a Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or a Justice Satellite Office (JSO) – See Map. All employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office, subject to local estate capacity). 

For current MoJ employees, your base location will need to be changed to the nearest viable office (to your home postcode), either at a HQ building, JCC or JSO within the National Office Network and moved its location’s respective pay scale (any legacy arrangements/locations will need to be amended).

Some of MoJ’s terms and conditions of service are changing as part of Civil Service reform. The changes will apply to staff joining MoJ who are new to the Civil Service. Staff joining MoJ from other civil service employers will transfer onto the new MoJ terms if they are already on 'modernised' terms in their current post or onto 'unmodernised' MoJ terms if they are on 'unmodernised' terms at their current post. Details will be available if an offer is made.

MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain their grade on lateral transfer.

All candidates who are currently in receipt of Mark Time / Pay Protection should ensure they are familiar with the new policy on permanent and temporary promotion which can be found on the employee intranet.

Flexible working hours 

The Ministry of Justice offers a flexible working system in many offices. Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. MoJ welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and business needs. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be considered in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy.

Benefits 

The MoJ offers a range of benefits:

Annual Leave

Annual leave is 25 days on appointment and will increase to 30 days after five years’ service.

There is also a scheme to allow qualifying staff to buy or sell up to three days leave each year. Additional paid time off for public holidays and 1 privilege day. Leave for part-time and job share posts will be calculated on a pro-rata basis.

Pension 

The Civil Service offers a choice of pension schemes, giving you the flexibility to choose the pension that suits you best.

Training 

The Ministry of Justice is committed to staff development and offers an extensive range of training and development opportunities.

Networks 

The opportunity to join employee-run networks that have been established to provide advice and support and to enable the views of employees from minority groups to be expressed direct to senior management. There are currently networks for employees of minority ethnic origin, employees with disabilities, employees with caring responsibilities, women employees, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees.

Eligibility

Staff on fixed term appointments must have been recruited through fair and open competition.

Vacancies advertised “cross-government” are only open to all Civil Service employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) who were appointed on merit following a fair and open competition; or were appointed to a permanent post through an exception in the Civil Service Commissioners' rules.

Support

  • A range of ‘Family Friendly’ policies such as opportunities to work reduced hours or job share.
  • Access to flexible benefits such as voluntary benefits, retail vouchers and discounts on a range of goods and services.
  • For moves to or from another employer or moves across the Civil Service this can have implications on your eligibility to carry on claiming childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for alternative government childcare support schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. More information can be found on www.www.GOV.UK or Childcare Choices. You can determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
  • Paid paternity, adoption and maternity leave.
  • Free annual sight tests for employees who use computer screens.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. Should you feel that the recruitment process has breached the recruitment principles you are able to raise a formal complaint in the following order

As a Disability Confident employer, MoJ are committed to providing everyone with the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, talent and abilities, by making adjustments throughout all elements of the recruitment process and in the workplace. MoJ are able to offer an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns.

You will be able to request reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process within the application form. If you need additional help completing the application form, please contact the TBS Recruitment Enquiries Team.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please watch our animated videos.

Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

Redeployment Interview Scheme

Civil Service departments are expected to explore redeployment opportunities before making an individual redundant. The MoJ is committed, as part of the Redeployment Interview Scheme, to providing opportunities to those who are 'at risk of redundancy'.

MoJ is able to offer an interview to eligible candidates who meet the minimum selection criteria, except in a limited number of campaigns. Candidates will not be eligible for the Redeployment Interview Scheme if they are applying on promotion.

Civil Service Nationality Rules

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles.

Contact Information

MoJ:

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5359 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference 12034

HMPPS

If you require any assistance please call 0345 241 5358 (Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm) or e mail moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Please quote the job reference

Application form stage assessments

Experience
We will assess your experience for this role via the following methods
CV or Work History, Statement of Suitability
Statement of Suitability
Guidance for the Statement of Suitability
Please submit a statement of suitability demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria (up to 750 words). Please ensure you cover both ‘what’ you do but also ‘how’ you do it. (i.e., the effective skills, knowledge & experience needed to undertake the role).
Evidence of Experience
CV or Work History, Statement of Suitability

Interview stage assessments

Interview Dates
Earliest to interview early January 2026, subject to change.
Behaviours
Delivering at Pace
Working Together
Communicating and Influencing
Level of security checks required
DBS Basic

Use of Artificial Intelligence (Al)

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.