Head of Operational Excellence (Ref: 15644)

Job summary

Please refer to Job Description

Job description

Head of Operational Excellence

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) is an executive agency of Ministry of Justice. We receive over 40,000 applications a year for compensation, from people who have lost loved ones or have been injured as a result of violent crime. We know financial compensation can never fully redress what they have suffered. Nevertheless, what we do is an important part of providing justice for victims and we take pride that the compensation we pay helps people move forward with their lives.

Some of the material you will access may include upsetting personal accounts of harm inflicted by others. This could include sexual assault and violence against children. We recognise the personal impact this may have and we provide resilience training, to promote wellbeing.

We employ around 350 people and are based in Glasgow city centre, with excellent transport links. We are a small, engaged, productive workforce with a real sense of corporate community. We want to keep improving our services and the way we work to best serve the public, meet new challenges, deliver value for money and ensure CICA is a great place to work.

This position is based at Buchanan Wharf, 10 Clyde Place, Glasgow, G5 8AQ. We currently operate a hybrid working business model, where you will be expected to work 50% of your time in the office and the remainder at home.

The Role

The Head of Operational Excellence is responsible for enabling high-quality, consistent, and well-governed operational delivery through leadership of quality assurance, learning and development, communications and engagement, operational business planning coordination, and payments and administrative services. Line management of a team of approx. 25.

The role ensures operational teams are supported, skilled, informed, and aligned, with strong control over quality, customer experience, and delivery of organisational priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Assurance, Coaching & Learning

• Own and lead the operational quality assurance framework, ensuring consistency, fairness, and defensibility of decision-making.
• Set quality standards in line with legislation, the CICA Scheme, and MoJ requirements.
• Use QA insight to identify systemic issues, risks, and improvement opportunities.
• Lead coaching, feedback, and continuous professional development activity for operational staff.
• Oversee operational training design, delivery, and evaluation, ensuring staff capability is maintained and developed.
• Work closely with Heads of Operational Delivery to embed learning into day-to-day delivery.

Communications & Engagement

• Lead internal operational communications, ensuring clear, timely, and consistent messaging to frontline teams.
• Coordinate engagement activity across Operations, supporting change, wellbeing, and staff engagement initiatives.
• Act as the operational interface with Corporate Communications, ensuring alignment of messaging.
• Support senior leaders with briefings, key messages, and engagement plans.

Business Planning & Delivery Coordination

• Coordinate the development, tracking, and delivery of the operational business plan, ensuring actions are clearly owned and progress is monitored.
• Support prioritisation, sequencing, and dependency management across operational and support activity.
• Provide assurance to senior leadership on delivery risks, progress, and mitigations.
• Ensure operational objectives align with strategic, financial, and workforce plans.

Payments & Administrative Services

• Lead teams responsible for payments processing and operational administrative support, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and compliance.
• Ensure strong controls are in place to manage financial risk, fraud prevention, and audit requirements.
• Oversee continuous improvement of payment and administrative processes to improve customer experience and efficiency.
• Act as senior escalation point for complex or sensitive payment-related issues.

Governance, Risk & Assurance

• Maintain oversight of operational risks related to quality, capability, payments, and delivery.
• Support operational audit activity, inspections, and reviews, ensuring timely and effective responses.
• Ensure operational support functions meet MoJ governance and assurance expectations.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Provide visible leadership to operational support teams, fostering a culture of professionalism, learning, and accountability.
• Build strong partnerships with Heads of Operations, Digital, Transformation, HR, Finance, and Policy teams.
• Deputise for the Director of Operations as required.

Essential criteria

• Senior leadership experience across quality assurance, learning and development, or operational support functions.
• Strong understanding of regulated operational environments and assurance requirements.
• Experience using insight and data to drive improvement in quality and performance.
• Excellent communication, engagement, and influencing skills.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in justice, compensation, or MoJ-aligned organisations.
• Background in coaching-led performance improvement or workforce capability development.
• Experience overseeing payments or financially sensitive operational processes.

How to apply

The selection process for this vacancy will utilise Civil Service Success Profiles and will assess your Experience, Behaviours and Strengths.

Stage 1

Applicants should provide a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and a Statement of Suitability of no more than 1000 words, which demonstrates evidence of the essential criteria for this role and of the behaviours listed below.

Stage 2

If successful at Stage 1, you will be invited to interview, which will incorporate a short presentation. You will be notified of the presentation topic in your invitation to interview. At the interview we will assess you against the behaviours listed below:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing

At interview you will be asked a number of behaviour and strength-based questions.

Interviews are likely to take place in May at our office at 10 Clyde Place, Buchanan Wharf, Glasgow G5 8AQ.

Following the closing date, this job advertisement will no longer be available to view. You may wish to retain a copy for your records.

A reserve list will be created and will be valid for 12 months. If further vacancies arise for this or similar roles within the organisation, candidates may be appointed from the reserve list in order of merit.

We offer flexible working 7am – 7pm, Monday to Friday. However, we ask that candidates make themselves available to attend the office on a full-time, fixed hours basis (9am to 5pm) for the initial training period which takes up to 10 weeks. This is to ensure the best training and consolidation experience for new colleagues.

This role is offered on a full-time (37 hours per week) basis.

For queries about the role, please contact our Corporate Support Team by email Corporate.Support@cica.gov.uk.

Reasonable Adjustments

Please tell us if you have a disability when you apply, and we can offer reasonable adjustments to help with the selection process.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £58,511, Ministry of Justice contributes £16,950 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Access to learning and development
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• Annual Leave
• Public Holidays
• Season Ticket Advance

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Link: https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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 : SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team
• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk
• Telephone : 0345 241 5358

Recruitment team

• Email : moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirement of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@gov.sscl.com) in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…

https://jobs.justice.gov.uk/careers/JobDetail/15644?entityId=15644