BEIS Jobs 2023 – Senior Service Designer

About the job

Location

Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford

Job Summary

About the job

Our Mission

At BEIS, we are leading the UK’s recovery from coronavirus and are building a stronger, greener country. Our varied work makes a real difference to people across the UK and internationally. This is a fantastic opportunity to become part of the BEIS team and our exciting mission!

We lead on the UK’s commitments to tackle climate change and drive green economic growth. We support businesses to create jobs and increase opportunity in regions across the UK. We also encourage investment and innovation to make the UK a science superpower producing research that will improve lives.

Our Inclusive Environment

We are building an inclusive culture to make BEIS a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.

We offer first-class flexible working benefits, excellent employee well-being support and a great pension. We are fortunate to have a range of excellent staff networks and are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We will support talented people from all backgrounds to build a career and thrive.

We actively welcome applications from anyone who shares our commitment to inclusion. We will fully support candidates with a disability or long-term condition who require adjustments in our recruitment process.

Job Description

Our Team

As a core part of BEIS Digital you will be part of a specialist multi-disciplinary team comprised of Service Designers, Content Designers, User Researchers, Product Managers and Software Developers. You will be part of a team that works very collaboratively and is leading example of how a user-centred approach can add value and drive efficiency in government. In addition to frequent learning opportunities and flexible working, the opportunity to work very closely with other disciplines will give you an amazing opportunity to learn how each specialism adds value to a service.

The Role

As a Senior Service Designer within BEIS Digital, you’ll support internal teams across BEIS to ensure that their service is user-centred. Your role will be to design accessible services that reduce friction and complexity across the whole service. You will work with senior stakeholders and customers to develop design concepts and support them by finding solutions to complex problems. As a Senior Service Designer you will also work with the Lead Service Designer to set direction and embed good practice within the team.

You’ll also be a mentor for junior members of the User Centred Design team and you’ll be able to work with minimal support and supervision.

Read more about BEIS Digital on

Person specification

As a Senior Service Designer within BEIS Digital, you will

• Understand user needs and identify where separate interactions within BEIS and across government.
• Identify opportunities for cost reduction and improvement within an existing service.
• Select and use appropriate design tools and methods to collaboratively explore service opportunities and problems and reduce unnecessary complexity.
• Understand the existing supporting sy stem of a service and design targeted improvements to that system to accommodate the new service – both digital and process based.
• Create and rapidly iterate service prototypes.
• Translate user needs into inclusive design concepts and prototypes.
• Collaborate on designs with developers and other in multidisciplinary team.
• Communicate design solutions effectively and influence key stakeholders of different design directions.
• Explain design decisions and be able to represent a service at a service assessment.

Skills & Experience

We want to hear from you if you have the following.

You Have

Essential Skills

• Relevant experience in designing services or user-centred digital tools
• Experience of working in an agile team
• The ability to work autonomously away from their team and at pace
• Experience of working with complex services and identify opportunities of how to remove complexity from services
• Experience of negotiating design decisions successfully with stakeholders
• Experience in leading workshops with non-technical colleagues and senior stakeholders
• The ability to identify the right medium to communicate within your team. For example: sketching, show-and-tells, paper prototyping, digital prototyping, non-digital prototyping or whiteboarding.
• Experience of explaining design ideas and concepts in a way that other people understand
• Experience in supporting user researchers to interpret findings and some experience in conducting basic user research yourself such as user interviews and usability testing
• Welcome the constructive criticism of your work and be able to constructively review the work of others

Please refer to the DDaT framework for more information about the skills needed for the role:

Technical Skills To Be Assessed At Interview

Agile Working – You can coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach for the team to take and evaluating this through the life of a project. You can think of new and innovative ways of working to achieve the right outcomes. You can act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team

User Focus – You can give direction on which tools or methods to use. You can demonstrate experience in meeting the needs of users across a variety of channels. You can bring insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure they’re met by the business. You can apply strategic thinking to provide the best service for the end user.

Communication – You can listen to the needs of technical and business stakeholders, and interpret them. You can effectively manage stakeholder expectations. You can manage active and reactive communication. You can support or host difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders.

Additional Application Information

As part the application, we request that a portfolio of evidence is submitted to

Please submit a portfolio examples in pdf format to this email address, from the email address linked to your application, and the recruitment team will link these documents to your anonymised application for the sift panel to assess.

In your portfolio, we would like to see examples of your experience in the following ways:

• Interpreted user research findings and/or photos of having supported or been involved in research methods.
• Any assets that have been created as part of assessing an existing service.
• Assets created specifically for workshops or outputs from the workshop that demonstrate collaborative working.
• Examples of how you have supported Teams in determining how to improve their service.

Please ensure that your portfolio pieces are anonymised for fair screening.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Delivering at Pace

Technical Skills

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

• Agile Working
• User Focus
• Communication

Benefits

BEIS offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.

Automatic enrolment into the

A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.

An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.

Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.

A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need (from September 2021, depending on how the public health guidance evolves).

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

In addition, you will be asked to submit a portfolio of examples of work.

Please see detail on the portfolio requirement above under the heading “Additional Application Information”.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 750 words) to explain how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification and the DDaT framework.

Candidates will be sifted on technical skills, CV, and personal statement.

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour and technical questions.

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time.

Expected Timeline subject to change

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Interview will be held using Microsoft Teams.

Candidates are asked to note the above timetable, exercising flexibility through the recruitment and selection process.

Reasonable Adjustment

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via [email protected] as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
• Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

Further Information

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

Any move to Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

BEIS does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

Please note that BEIS does not hold a licence to sponsor visa applications.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service /Disclosure Scotland on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing

For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

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

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

People working with government assets must complete

Nationality Requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
• relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
• certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

Working for the Civil Service

The

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s

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.

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction.

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 : Penelope Kopala
• Email : [email protected]

Recruitment team :

• Email : [email protected]

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance [email protected]. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click