19251 - Head of Change

Job Title: Head of Change

Directorate: HMPPS Change Directorate

Band: HMPPS Band 11

Overview of Job:

The Change Portfolio team is located within the HMPPS Change Directorate and is responsible for overseeing change across HMPPS. The team has been developed as a single function with two teams – one focused on providing services to the Portfolio (oversight) and Future Programme (direct service provision).

The team is responsible for the portfolio management of all major change in HMPPS and supports the management of the Change Portfolio Board as the primary point of internal governance for oversight of change.

The Change Portfolio team works closely with MoJ functions and programme leads to ensure a complete picture of change impacting HMPPS is understood; that this change can be triaged and prioritised; and that this change can effectively be delivered.

The Change Portfolio team:

• Provide oversight, assurance and reporting of major change programme within the HMPPS Change Portfolio.  Work with the Portfolio Board to intervene where appropriate to tackle emerging, complex issues that place programme delivery in jeopardy.
• Provide direct support, resource and advice to future individual programmes that fall below the line of GMPP programme delivery.
• Protect the organisation from Change Overload.

Summary

The Head of Change will work collaboratively with the Head of Change Delivery to support the Deputy Director, Change Delivery and Change Portfolio Office to deliver the following:

• Provide high level oversight of all major change in HMPPS; Gatekeep and prioritise change activity and support frontline services in the delivery of change initiatives and associated business benefits.
• Ensure all proposed change supports the ambitions of the HMPPS strategy; will manage the level of demand change is placing on the operational workforce.
• Provide oversight of major HMPPS change programmes, including those initiated in the digital, data and technological space, and ensure the risks, issues and benefits of those programmes are robustly managed. These duties will be delivered in the management of HMPPS’ PMO resource and the Change Portfolio Board.
• Determining what level of change HMPPS can deliver at any one time, support in the critical analysis of whether change should happen and can be supported and protect frontline services from any unmanageable or unplanned for change.
• Oversee the change delivery resource in all of the HMPPS areas and ensure change that has been approved can be effectively delivered in frontline services.
• Provide portfolio governance to all change programmes in HMPPS, including assurance, reporting directly into the Change Portfolio Board.
• Provide strategic advice and direction across HMPPS relating to complex organizational change. They will be managing a large team including direct and matrix managed resource and engage with senior stakeholders.
• Make decisions on behalf of HMPPS to ensure individual change projects are effectively delivered and apply judgement to balance the interdependencies between programmes, making sure they are in line with HMPPS strategic priorities. This includes mapping change projects in the functional leadership space and working with leaders in those areas to gain an understanding of the impact of their projects.
• Assimilate complex and highly sensitive information to assess the change management capacity across HMPPS and will provide advice to senior officials on the timing and speed of any change delivery proposals.
• Manage a large team including direct and matrix managed resource and engage with senior stakeholders.

Specifically, the Head of Change will lead, develop, embed and oversee the following:

• Provide project and programme resource to future programmes that fall below the line of GMPP programme delivery.
• Provide direct services to HMPPS GMPP, legacy and smaller projects (not provided by MoJ PDF).
• Provide assurance and reporting of programme delivery to government standards and intervene to tackle emerging, complex issues that put programme delivery in jeopardy.
• Provide accountability and leadership for the whole of the HMPPS change function, including the prison reform portfolio, the flexible resourcing pool and the assurance teams for all Change activity. The post holder will be expected to lead in raising the maturity of the project and portfolio management and lead in best practice across the whole of HMPPS.
• Protect the organisation from Change Overload and controls to monitor and manage the health of the portfolio.

The post holder will need to lead a large, geographically spread team and will be responsible for the development and delivery of strategies to support the operational business to deliver all change activities, whilst also holding the delivery programmes to account.

The post holder reports to the Deputy Director of HMPPS Change Directorate and will manage a large team.

This post is non-operational.

Responsibilities, Activities and Duties:

This Job Summary is an addendum to the HQ Job Description for the Head of Change:

The job holder will be required to carry out the following responsibilities, activities, and duties:

• To lead the Future Programme and Portfolio Management and Development functions, driving high performance and delivering to a high standard and increasing agency capacity.
• Ensure that all change is aligned to strategic outcomes and therefore support work to protect benefits/strategic outcomes.
• Managing within the delegated budget, for both staff and non-staff costs, making effective decisions to support delivery.
• Lead, shape and enhance the HMPPS approach to organizational change, to maximise engagement and ownership of delivery.
• Build overall knowledge and capability of programme management throughout HMPPS.
• Provide advice and support to programme directors and SROs to effectively deliver their programmes.
• Create and develop a gateway system, working with functional leads and the agency board to enable change programmes to be correctly assured before being implemented.
• Overall responsibility for resource management for the portfolio, including management of a flexible resourcing pool which supports the delivery of programmes. This includes ensuring any business cases demonstrate both investment and benefits and are approved at the appropriate levels. This includes financial approvals and ensuring this is managed within a delegated budget.
• Take a leading role with stakeholder management which supports organizational change, assessing levels of engagement in key stakeholders and actively managing the relationships.
• Establish robust governance to ensure the Director led change board is effective in managing change and holding programmes to account. Defining the separation between policy creation and change management and working with colleagues to police that line.
• Develop a process for evaluating change, understanding if benefits have been realised and learning lessons from the implementation of the change. Lead on feeding this back through the agency board to the whole of HMPPS.
• Chairing team meetings, and attending board meetings, including agency board meetings, to ensure visibility and engagement with the agency senior team on the development and implementation of change.

The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive. The job holder is expected to accept reasonable alterations and additional tasks of a similar level that may be necessary. Significant adjustments may require re-examination under the Job Evaluation Scheme and shall be discussed in the first instance with the job holder.

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these Behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture - Application and Interview
• Leadership - Application and Interview
• Working Together - Application and Interview
• Delivering at Pace - Interview Only

Ability

• Good written and oral communication skills.

Experience

• Excellent leadership and experience of leading a team coupled with an ability to think strategically and to work with others to implement plans.
• Understand the management structures and culture of the relevant areas.
• Able to broker relationships with stakeholders within and outside the project or programme.
• Able to negotiate and influence stakeholders within and outside the project, programme and portfolio.
• Experience of liaising and working with a diverse set of stakeholders, including senior members of staff.
• Experience of applying project management disciplines.
• Experience of leading a programme function.
• Senior level experience of facilitating and embedding organisational change.

Technical

Project Delivery Profession Skills and Competencies:

• Managing project lifecycles
• Governance and assurance
• Project Management  - PLP, MPLA and any other relevant development.

In line with our hybrid working policy, employees must be present in the office for at least 60% of their working hours, which equates to three days per week. 

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.