Lead Service Designer

At HMRC we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve.

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career at HMRC accessible to you.

Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is a key part of the government’s ambition for HMRC to become one of the most digitally advanced tax authorities in the world. MTD will make it easier for businesses to get their tax right, saving time which can be devoted to maximising business opportunities, and helping to foster good financial planning. MTD requires businesses to use digital record-keeping tools and submit tax return data directly from those records using MTD-compatible software. We are committed to ensuring that the tax system continues to meet the needs of the increasingly digitally engaged population, and we want to build on its resilience and effectiveness.

An exciting new opportunity is available within the Making Tax Digital Programme, for a motivated, passionate and self-starting individual to join an established and highly experienced team operating in a fast-paced environment.

We are looking for an individual who is proactive in their approach to work and has sound judgement, as well as a strong ability to communicate and prioritise.

The successful individual can look forward to a supportive environment that will provide all the training and experience they need to succeed.

This will offer the successful candidate the opportunity to develop their skills and personal effectiveness.

In addition, the successful candidate can look forward to valuable and unique insights into a high-profile programme.

See what it’s like to work at HMRC: find out more about us or ask our colleagues a question. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

You will shape and lead on designing the end-to-end journey of our services and products for our users, solving tricky problems and thinking broadly about how services and policies interact. With complex services we have a complex user base – millions of people have to use these services, which means a broad spectrum of different needs and outcomes. You will lead and support others within the profession to take on designing our biggest services.

The Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Capability Framework provides more details about the role of the Lead Service Designer which can be found here online below or available to download at the bottom of this job advert in the candidate pack.

Service Designer

The Lead Service Designer will fulfil a range of roles in the programme:

• Leader – Providing service design leadership on complex projects and in support of other service designers, including the management and/or coaching junior designers.
• Co-creator – Building a successful team where everyone involved in the service is represented and contributes to the bigger picture.
• Facilitator – developing a common understanding of a challenging policy problem or potential policy options and enable design-led decision making.
• Storyteller – articulating strategic goals for services, communicating complex information, and sharing the story using artefacts like service blueprints, roadmaps, vision and mission statements that you and your service designers create
• Evidence-driven – you are a strong believer in context-based design, you can visualise, articulate and solve complex problems and concepts, and make disciplined decisions based on available information and research evidence.
• Analyst – Analysing failure within existing services and/or identifying potential unintended consequences of policy options and creating recommendations to address these.
• Holistic – Understanding the existing support system for a service – both digital and process based – and designing targeted improvements to existing services or to accommodate new services.

Technical skills:

We would like you to show the following technical skills from the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Capability Framework, as you will be assessed against them throughout the recruitment process:

• Evidence and context -based design
• Strategic thinking
• User centred design
• Leadership and guidance
• Service design techniques

Essential Criteria:  

You will be able to provide evidence of the following:

1. Leading service design for complex and large-scale services that meet user needs across a variety of channels, using key artefacts such as blueprints to create shared understanding
2. Developing service design capability in a delivery environment, overseeing work, mentoring or coaching, and managing the overall quality and standard of work across multiple projects and teams
3. Successfully communicating the value of user-centred service design to a wide variety of audiences, including senior leaders
4. Building and presenting case studies that demonstrate how user centred service design was a key component of the delivery of complex services
5. Leading service design across different phases: discovery, alpha, private and public beta and live
6. Analysing complex and constrained contexts and environments to arrive at clear user-centred service propositions

Desirable Criteria:   

• Utilising new or emerging technologies in digital delivery platforms
• Creating or managing inclusive and diverse services