Shared Services Partnership
Location
Westminster, Greater London | United Kingdom
Job description
Salary range: £53,109 - £56,151 per annum
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP
Hours per week: 36
Contract type: Temporary up to 12 months
Closing date: 22 March 2024
Contact details for an informal discussion: Melis Sezgin, Head of Research and Design, via email: [email protected]
THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF 809 CONNECTED BUSINESSES
Digital and Innovation in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories, where creative and enterprising people put local residents and businesses first.
Today, Westminster is the most connected borough in London. But, when David joined us in the mid-2010s, small businesses were still struggling to get connected to fibre. Without gigabit-capable broadband, some companies even resorted to biking memory sticks around the city, simply to share files with clients.
Although still in a junior role, David took the initiative and successfully made the business case for £2.8 million of European funding to support connectivity for small businesses across Westminster. Feedback from businesses has been overwhelmingly positive as the project has enhanced their communications with clients. The new connectivity allows them to make video calls and work remotely. As the pandemic hit and many more people needed to work from home, it became clear just how vital this investment had been.
Fast-forward a few years. Westminster is leading the way for connectivity, as a result of the project businesses are thriving, and David is heading up a service of his own responsible for delivery of the Smart City strategy.
As a Senior Service Designer on a one year fixed term contract with our Housing Department you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. Running innovative discovery projects as you work with design colleagues, developers, business analysts and other stakeholders, you’ll be on a proactive journey of delivery. With user need at the heart of our ambition to improve outcomes for everyone who lives, works and plays in Westminster, you could be asked to work in a variety of ways. These range from joining a team working to iterate a product, being a member of a Project team using Agile/Waterfall methodologies to deliver agreed outcomes, or working with a Service team delivering against a set of requirements.
Whichever multi-disciplinary team you work with, you’ll be focused on driving cultural change. Specifying and designing end-to-end services for our most complex and interdependent services, it’ll be your job to help define user needs, business objectives, the scope, constraints, evaluation and prioritisation of user stories, and the identification and mitigation of design challenges. We’ll also expect you to work with our senior leaders to identify opportunities and solutions, including improvements in information systems, data management, practices, organisation and equipment.
Working with a number of service areas to map their business flows, inspire their ambition and help them streamline their processes, you’ll prototype services and interactions to help them understand the possibilities of transformation. Committed to ensuring that everyone’s views are considered, verified and validated, we’ll also expect you to take a lead role in the iterative design and development process, and undertake impact analysis on design options while taking account of the different levels of sophistication of our users.
Please refer to the Job Description for more information.
With a deep understanding of service design skills, principles, practices and methods, you’ll have well developed knowledge of modern technology, including the cloud, architecture, Agile delivery methods and software development, as well as user-centred and service design. Capable of building accessible online services, you should also have experience of the cross-government DDAT framework and wider developments in government digital transformation.
We’ll look for a successful track record of working across multi-disciplinary teams to deliver digital products, and of using Agile methodology in a large and complex organisation. You should also have significant experience of balancing client, organisational and technical needs, of working as a service designer in teams that are building products and platforms, and of taking an active part in the public sector digital community.
We’ll expect you to have a wide range of specialist skills, including the ability to guide design decisions in complex service areas, helping stakeholders see opportunities, leading process change and plotting a path forward. Adept at building high-performing teams, you’ll understand technical complexities and risks, and be capable of running collaborative design activities while helping services build and deliver on a vision of transformation. Ready to use your superb communication and interpersonal skills to build positive relationships with a range of colleagues and stakeholders, you’ll also be capable of coaching teams in Agile techniques and applying digital ways of thinking to non-digital problems.
The Council is committed to achieving diverse shortlists to support our desire to increase the number of staff from underrepresented groups in our workforce. We especially encourage applications from a global majority background and, while the role is open to all applicants, we will utilise the positive action provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to appoint a candidate from a global majority background where there is a choice between two candidates of equal merit. If you are from a Global Majority background, you can self-declare this to the hiring manager as part of our positive action commitments.
Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.
At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit
As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.
The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.
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