HMRC is building a modern, digital tax administration and runs the biggest digital operation in Government, providing digital services for 45 million individuals and 4.9 million business customers. Our digital programme is multi-award winning and the envy of other government organisations!

Our role sits within HMRC’s Chief Digital & Information Group (CDIO) we’re increasingly delivering in-house through our growing network of digital delivery centres – hi-tech, state-of-the-art facilities across the UK.

Valuation Office Agency Customer Group (VOA CG) provides digital services and IT support to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA): drawing on HMRC’s digital expertise to ensure our customer (the VOA) gets the right level of service as well as building and supporting specialist, unique services.

There are some important attributes that we are looking for in anyone joining VOA CG. You must have a collaborative approach and a passion to communicate effectively. You will take accountability and ownership and have the ability to coach, mentor, reflect and to give and receive feedback. You will be flexible and adaptable, working with a sense of urgency and be passionate about having ‘The Customer’ at the heart of what you do.

This is a new role as the Senior Service Designer directing a team of Design engineers and playing a key role in a high profile business transformation programme supporting the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) to reinvent itself as a digital, user focused organisation.

You’ll work in a multidisciplinary team, alongside Policy Specialists, User Researchers, Designers, Product Managers and Technology specialists, to develop integrated user-centred public services. You’ll be part of our active and encouraging design community in VOA, HMRC and across government.

Responsibilities Providing design leadership to support user-centred service approaches based on insight and evidence

Identifying future service opportunities and propositions that meet user needs and deliver on government intentions, and communicating the rationale and potential benefits of those propositions

Leading teams and key individuals to develop service propositions into designs, making good design decisions, including the identification of risks and mitigation

Developing an understanding of policy and organisational intents as well as a clear understanding of user needs

Helping to plan user research and collaboratively analysing and synthesising the results of user research

Analysing failure within existing services, identifying root causes for that failure and creating recommendations to address that failure

Mapping current service journeys and creating blueprints for improved and/or new services

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

Being responsible for the development of collaborative relationships with stakeholders across teams and service domains

Mentoring and coaching within the design community, line managing more Junior Designers, and participating in HMRC’s design profession and cross-government design and policy communities

Essential criteria:

Significant experience designing services that meet user needs and are delivered through integrated digital and/or non-digital services; you will need to show evidence of this as part of your application, through including links to service design portfolio/examples in your personal statement

Experience using design in the development of strategy, including the evaluation of strategies and policies to ensure that user needs and business requirements are being met

Significant experience planning service design project engagements, including developing high-level project plans for design activity

Significant experience planning and running workshops with key individuals, end users and/or front-line service providers

Proven experience owning the analysis and synthesis of outputs from workshops and other research/design activity, for instance, user journeys and service flows

Demonstrable experience preparing and communicating research, workshop and design outputs, for example: service maps/blueprints and design presentations

A solid understanding of user research practice, experience in using metrics and user feedback to define/refine services and the ability to work collaboratively with user researchers and interpret research findings

Significant experience using a variety of methods for prototyping and iterating products and/or services, including the end to end service context

An understanding of new and emerging technologies and a basic understanding of digital delivery platforms and digital prototyping approaches

Experience working collaboratively and effectively with multidisciplinary teams at pace

Desirable criteria

Experience working in agile teams

Designing within a policy context

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable adjustments to participate in the job application or interview process.

Applicants should note that the starting salary for those who are offered a position is the salary scale minimum (£51,050) for this grade.

When lockdown restrictions ease, some regular travel to our VOACG Strategic Locations of Worthing, Bristol, Edinburgh & Manchester alongside other VOA & HMRC sites will be required. Office visits could require overnight stays. This will be on an ad hoc basis to be defined by you in the role and agreed with your line manager.

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

• Interview candidates will be asked to complete a short design-related exercise for the interview; further details of this will be included with the invitation to interview.