Future Technology Services Lead

The Civil Service must have the skills needed to support the delivery of the government's priorities. Training in the Civil Service needs to support the development of skills for 550,000 civil servants. It must support these civil servants in improving their performance in role as well as advancing their career development, whether they are in central policy roles, front line delivery, or any number of arms length bodies.

Government Skills was created in 2020 to improve the coherence and quality of learning and development in government through better training, knowledge and networks. Ministers have now asked us to make an ambitious Spending Review bid to transform the operating model for skills in government, delivered under The National School of Government and Public Services. As part of this transformational change of delivering training, we are reviewing the balance between training procured externally and design and/or delivered internally in the civil service. We expect this balance to shift more towards in-house design and/or delivery as we move away from the current approach of outsourcing to external training providers.

The Learning Infrastructure Team is responsible for three enabling workstreams under the National School of Government and Public Services Portfolio. Between them, these workstreams cover the current, transitional and future infrastructure to support centralised training for Civil Servants.

This role sits within the Future Technical Services Team and will play an integral role in the design of future learning and development of end to end operational services. This will include establishing what technology is required and the design of the end to end process to ensure high quality learner experience.

This role will work closely with colleagues across Cabinet Office, Government People Group and digital architecture to ensure the design and service delivery is coordinated ensuring systems and processes are aligned to provide the best solutions for service design, minimising duplication.

• Research and scoping of technical design solutions needed to enable effective internal design and delivery of Universal skills, including leadership and management services via an internal learning design and delivery team, as well as interfaces with external providers
• Collaborating with stakeholders to identify requirements for end to end customer services that support effective administration of learning and development. This may include a service centre to provide a first point of contact support for learners and purchasers/managers to advise on services, to support learners with service issues, and to monitor continuous improvement of the service.
• Research required technical support systems needed for internal delivery of training services that will meet user/business requirements to ensure users can: identify relevant training, book training, complete training, provide feedback on training, provide accurate data on attendance and spend etc.
• Work with the curriculum leads to capture and define requirements for e-learning, social learning and other data/systems hosting, accessibility standards, financial systems & data and evaluation systems that might be needed as part of the end to end learning service.
• Scope and identify potential technical/digital solutions (eg workflow, finance, scheduling system, learning hosting, management/experience etc) to meet the requirements of an end to end learning service
• Determine the resource requirements for the roles and responsibilities to deliver the infrastructure and support services for the end to end learning service
• Determine the service level agreements and user experience criteria
• Work with Information Security to ensure that all systems and services conform to Government requirements and GDPR.
• Work with colleagues to contribute to the development of all five elements of the Green Book business case process. This will include demonstrating the benefits, resource requirements and SLAs to ensure the service meets Civil Service requirements for a new delivery model.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills with an ability to identify and build trust-based relationships with a wide range of demanding and diverse senior stakeholders. You will be comfortable constructively and effectively challenging partners and stakeholders, working collaboratively to agree and deliver solutions.
• Highly organised and adaptable to change and able to work flexibly, often under pressure, ensuring aims and objectives are realised and key stakeholders kept informed. You will possess good planning skills, able to balance activities, and motivate your team to perform at their best even when under pressure.
• Interpret complex information from many sources and come to sound conclusions.
• Be comfortable working with uncertainty, where there is no precedent or existing procedure and be confident resolving ambiguity.
• Excellent communication skills, producing reports, presentations and briefings confidently explaining complex issues in a way that is easy to understand, with an eye for detail and ability to tailor style/content with impact and influence for different audiences including senior officials.
• Experience of designing operational processes for large complex organisations
• Experience of delivery of training services and/or Learning Management Systems

Desirable

• Qualifications in learning and development CIPD chartered status or similar experience in delivering learning solutions
• Understanding of technology delivery services such as Learning Management Systems (LMS or LXPs) and HR systems.

Additional information:

Cabinet Office policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%. Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.