Senior IT Service Manager - Crown Prosecution Service - SEO

Location

This post can be based in any location within England and Wales where a Crown Prosecution Service office is located. You are expected to travel to Crown Prosecution Service locations as part of this role, based on business needs. The Crown Prosecution Service is a Disability Confident employer and all reasonable adjustments are considered in line with Equality Act of 2010.

About the job

Job summary

As the Senior IT Service Manager (Service Transition), you lead the end-to-end transition of new and significantly changed digital and technology services into live operation across the Crown Prosecution Service. You ensure that services are operationally ready, supported by an appropriate service model, and accepted into service through clear governance, assurance and formal sign-off

Working across project, commercial, architecture, security, operations and supplier teams, you define transition plans and acceptance criteria; assure support arrangements, documentation, testing, knowledge transfer and service readiness; and identify and manage risks to service continuity. You also coordinate early-life support and controlled handover into business-as-usual service management.

You work in a complex, multi-supplier environment and provide clear advice and recommendations to senior stakeholders on service readiness, operational impacts and fitness for live service. You promote consistent service transition methods, support continual improvement through post-implementation reviews, and help ensure that services remain responsive to user needs and meet agreed standards. This is an opportunity to shape reliable, sustainable support arrangements for business-critical CPS technology services while developing a strong culture of collaboration, accountability and user-focused service management.

The Crown Prosecution Service is based in England and Wales. If you’re applying for this role and live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you must let us know when accepting this offer as you need permission to work from your home address if hybrid working is part of your role. There’s no guarantee that we will grant this approval.  

You must be aged 16 or over at the point of starting in this role. The expected start date is approximately 8–12 weeks after the application closing date. You are expected to commence employment as soon as possible following the expiry of your notice period. Requests for significantly later start dates may not be accommodated.  

Job description

Your roles and responsibilities:

• You lead end-to-end transition planning and implementation for new, changed and exiting digital services, from initial requirements through operational acceptance and handover to live service, including an increasing portfolio of software developed in-house alongside supplier-delivered and externally hosted services.
• You define and assure service models, operational-readiness criteria and acceptance deliverables, including support processes, documentation, knowledge transfer, training, testing, contingency and rollback arrangements.
• You establish and operate proportionate transition governance, represent Service Management at programme and project forums, and provide clear readiness, risk and progress reporting to senior stakeholders, working across an environment that uses both agile and waterfall delivery approaches.
• You work closely with development teams, CPS teams, delivery partners and suppliers throughout the delivery lifecycle to resolve transition issues, protect service continuity and ensure incident, problem, change, release, asset and configuration arrangements are fit for purpose.
• You ensure that in-house developed applications are designed and delivered with effective operational support in mind, helping development and delivery teams understand service management, supportability and operational-readiness requirements before services transition into live operation.
• You manage early-life support and post-implementation reviews, embedding lessons learned, corrective actions and consistent continual-improvement practices.

A copy of the full job description is attached. 

Person specification

To be eligible to apply, you need to:

• Have substantial experience of leading service transition or operational-readiness activity for new or significantly changed digital/ICT services in a complex environment, including in-house developed software and services delivered through external suppliers or partners.
• Have experience of working within a software development environment, collaborating with developers, technical teams, delivery teams and service management colleagues to ensure that operational and support requirements are considered throughout the development lifecycle.
• Demonstrate experience of working with both agile and waterfall delivery approaches, with the ability to adapt service-transition and governance activities appropriately to different delivery methods.
• Demonstrate strong IT service management knowledge, including practical application of service acceptance, incident, problem, change, release, asset/configuration management and continual improvement.
• Be able to develop and assure transition plans, service/support models, readiness criteria, knowledge-transfer arrangements and controlled handover into business-as-usual operations.
• Have strong stakeholder, supplier and conflict-resolution skills, with the ability to communicate service risks, impacts and recommendations clearly to senior governance forums.
• Demonstrate effective leadership, sound judgement, user focus and the ability to deliver quality outcomes to agreed timescales.

It is desirable that you have the below experience, but this is not required to apply:

• ITIL Foundation (v3, v4 or v5), or equivalent practical ITSM experience.
• Experience of cloud/SaaS, hybrid or ERP service transitions, commercial/vendor management and early-life support.