Continuous Improvement Practitioner

Job summary

As a Continuous Improvement Practitioner, you play a pivotal role in driving process innovation and continuous improvement through the creation and embedding of Continuous Improvement methodology, and supporting frameworks, to deliver business transformation.

You provide expertise on a range of solutions and present potential options to the identified business requirements in need of improvement, acting as a point of contact and expert in continuous improvement.

You deliver a portfolio of a range of work in relation to identified improvement activities

The Crown Prosecution Service is based in England and Wales. If you’re applying for this role and live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must let us know when accepting this offer as you need permission to work from your home address if hybrid working is part of your role. There’s no guarantee that we will grant this approval.

You must be aged 16 before starting in this role. The start date is expected to be 8-12 weeks after the application deadline.

While the role does not currently include line management responsibilities, you may be required to undertake them in the future.

Please note that travel to multiple CPS office locations will be required for this role, including overnight stays.

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities

• Understanding the strategic drivers for their portfolio of work by assisting in the analysis of the data identifying improvements needed for business delivery processes, systems and procedures. You use continuous improvement methodologies to determine how performance can be realised and quality standards achieved and effectively delivered.
• Successfully delivering high quality outcomes that meet business needs by owning and delivering a portfolio of a range of work in relation to identified improvement activities. You are responsible for developing evaluation methodologies for areas of portfolio work. You work in partnership with other teams in HQ in the continuous improvement cycle to develop quality outcomes and create impactful changes and improvements to business processes and systems including IT.
• Supporting colleagues in the delivery of improvement activity which leads to measurable service improvements across the business. You support the delivery of better value and greater efficiency through the elimination of unnecessary complexity within business processes and systems and identification of better ways of working. You undertake design activity to identify system improvements to operating practice that can be applied across the service, measured and costed.
• Ensuring communication has a clear purpose and takes into account a variety of views across the business by liaising with key stakeholders from across the geographical areas. You support CPS Area colleagues with the delivery of CI methodology to support operational improvements. You consistently share successes across the CPS to gain support for improvements from the wider business.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Person specification

To be eligible to apply for this role, you need to meet the following criteria:

• a relevant qualification in Continuous Improvement tools and methodologies (e.g. minimum of Green Belt – Lean Six Sigma or equivalent)
• experience of delivering operational improvements and managing senior stakeholders

It is desirable that you have the below experience but this is not required to apply:

• cultural change - proven experience in driving cultural change and fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and continuously improving work environment
• delivering and facilitating Lean Six Sigma workshops

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,800, Crown Prosecution Service contributes £12,688 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Join the Crown Prosecution Service and find your purpose.

Why we work for the Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service is passionate about ensuring that we're a top performing organisation and a great place to work. We're a committed equal opportunities employer, creating a culture where you can bring your whole self to work, and individuality is truly appreciated.

This culture of inclusion is underpinned by our staff networks covering disability, faith and belief, LGBTQI+, race, social mobility alongside our mental health first aiders programme and wellbeing sessions.

The Crown Prosecution Service commits to offer its employees the following experience.

• You can do impactful, purposeful work that’s making a difference to your local communities.
• You are able to learn and grow, with access to the right opportunities and resources.
• We care about your wellbeing.
• We want you to feel valued, trusted and included.

We also offer the following range of benefits:

• Civil Service contributory pension of up to 28.9%
• 25 days’ leave, increasing to 30 days after 5 years
• £350 each year to spend on personal development
• lawyer training programme for all new prosecutors
• an extra privilege day to mark the King's birthday
• competitive maternity, paternity and parental leave
• flexible working including flexitime, and a family friendly approach to work
• Cycle2Work scheme, employee savings.

Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service is about inclusion, embracing differences and ensuring our workforce truly reflects the communities we serve. We want you to feel that you belong and can thrive, whatever your background, identity or culture. As a Disability Confident employer, we're happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments and improve your recruitment experience. If you'd like any reasonable adjustments made to our recruitment process, let us know within your application or contact daisy.gabriel1@cps.gov.uk.

We want to ensure our employees can thrive at work and home and offer a range of support to achieve a balance. This includes flexibility of working hours, flexibility to support caring responsibilities and a flexible approach to deployment. We offer a hybrid working policy. You must spend at least 40% of your contracted hours over a four-week period at court, in an office or another official workplace depending on business need and the kind of work you're doing.

Things you need to know

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, Strengths and Experience.

Recruitment process

The recruitment process consists of an online application, interview and assessment. These are expected to take place between the 10-12th June 2026.

Your interview takes place online through Microsoft Teams. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact daisy.gabriel1@cps.gov.uk.

You should keep these dates free or notify us if you're not available. We'll make every effort to accommodate your date preferences but we can't guarantee it.

Assessment

We ask you to complete an assessment as part of the recruitment process for this role. We will provide details immediately before your interview.

Behaviours

You are asked to complete a statement of no more than 250 words for each of the following behaviours, setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience match the specified behaviours and requirements:

1. changing and improving - lead behaviour
2. managing a quality service
3. communicating and influencing

In addition, you need to demonstrate the following experience/technical skills required for this role:

• experience of delivering operational improvements and managing senior stakeholders
• relevant qualification in Continuous Improvement tools and methodologies (e.g. minimum of Green Belt – Lean Six Sigma or equivalent)

You also need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

The panel has the right to assess the lead behaviour ‘changing and improving’ first. If the standard on this behaviour isn’t met, the other behaviours won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.

Interview/Assessment

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against SEO in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 4 behaviours at interview / assessment stage:

1. changing and improving - interview
2. managing a quality service- interview
3. communicating and influencing- interview
4. seeing the big picture - interview and assessment

Essential Experience/Technical Skills - assessed at interview and assessment

We understand interviews can be stressful, and we want to ensure you are able to best represent your skills, so the interview questions will be provided in advance, five working days prior to your interview.

CV

You’re not required to upload your CV. However, when submitting your application there is a ‘CV section’. You are required to provide information about your employment and/or academic history for the past three years. Add these if applicable – skills, and qualification details. The CV section will be used as supporting evidence, it won’t be assessed.

It’s your responsibility to provide the specified information in the requested format to ensure that you're considered for the post.

If you're unable to cover three years through employment or academic history, you must provide a character reference for clearance purposes.

Strengths

Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the interview.

Other

This is a full-time post. We do consider requests for flexible, part-time working and job share, always considering the operational needs of the department.

Please note that the CPS is unable to offer visa sponsorship. Therefore, if you require visa sponsorship to work in the UK, you will not meet the eligibility criteria for this role.

Clearance

If successful, you are required to securea Disclosure and Barring Service check, for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form, nationality and immigration questionnaire.

If you're a Crown Prosecution Service member of staff, you won’t need to do a Disclosure and Barring Service check as you already hold this clearance.

The job you’re applying for is covered by Article 3(a) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, consequently Section 4(2) of that Act doesn’t apply.You’re required to disclose all previous convictions and cautions including spent convictions. Failing to make a full declaration will result in withdrawing your offer of employment if our checks reveal convictions that haven’t been disclosed.

Reserve list

If you're recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancy, you’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another Continuous Improvement Practitioner post in the CPS if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the waiting list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.

Fraud check

The Crown Prosecution Service provides a Fair Processing Notice to all new applicants after they’ve been successful at interview. These candidates are informed that, as one aspect of pre-employment screening, their personal details – name, National Insurance number and date of birth – are checked against the Internal Fraud Database. We won't employ anyone included on the database unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances.

The Strategic Resourcing team in the Crown Prosecution Service will, on behalf of the vacancy holder, inform applicants when they are refused employment because of their inclusion in the Internal Fraud Database.

Civil Service Commission

If you’re dissatisfied with the recruitment process and wish to make a complaint, please contact Strategic.Resourcing@cps.gov.uk with your concerns.

If you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a further complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page Recruitment Complaints - Civil Service Commission

Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles can be found at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/

Details of the Civil Service Nationality Rules are located at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website at https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a 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 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 (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

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

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Daisy Gabriel
• Email : daisy.gabriel1@cps.gov.uk.

Recruitment team

• Email : strategic.resourcing@cps.gov.uk

Attachments

CPS Terms and Conditions Opens in new window (docx, 255kB)NEW CPS Personal Statement Guidance 2023 Opens in new window (docx, 269kB)B3 Continuous Improvement Practitioner Opens in new window (pdf, 104kB)