Principle Head of Service Management Delivery - HMRC - SCS1

HM Revenue and Customs is currently reorganising all IT Service Manager roles, and related service roles within the CDIO directorate (estimate of approx. 300 FTE). We expect between 40-50% of these roles to be organised within this newly created team within the ELS function – under the direct supervision of the role holder. This role is accountable for the delivery of IT service management across HMRC’s live IT service estate and manages IT service management in the Enterprise Live Service function (ELS hereafter) . This IT service estate is complex, ever changing  and a critical enabler to HMRC’s ability to deliver external user services. The role holder reports to the Director of Enterprise Live Service (SCS 2) The role holder will be the authority on operational service management across
CDIO, driving best practice ways of working across our service management teams – through DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering and Agile delivery techniques. As such, the role holder will frequently communicate with ExCom around the performance, availability and operational health of our IT services in the live IT estate (hundreds of services, lots of individual technical components) as well as senior civil servants across CDIO within the Product, Platform, Architecture & Data, and Central Operating Office functions.

The main objectives of this role are:

• Service Management across HMRC’s live IT service estate to industry best practice The operational performance, availability and reliability of all end-to-end IT services (and service user journeys)
• Developing and ongoing management of a virtual Service Management community to help drive best practice more broadly across CDIO, to share successes and lessons learnt to aid ongoing improvement of the delivery of IT Services to the Business / Customers and to provide a support network for resolving broader issues impacting how HMRC is able to protect Live Services.

Job description

Lead the assigned Service Management sub-function and working with the rest of the Enterprise Live Service Senior Leadership team, creating a highly effective, integrated Service Management & Integration team by a setting a clear strategy, goals and objectives for the function, based on a collaborative, inclusive approach.

• Develop, maintain and communicate the vision for live operation of HMRC's IT estate
• Be a visible leader across CDIO, particularly with the Product and Platform functions, Chief Data and Technology Office and Central Operating Office functions offering active support and engagement to help them deliver excellent IT Services for HMRC against challenging levels of service 
• Be an advocate and role model for excellent service management, demonstrating a passion for continual improvement and thereby positively impacting those around you who manage IT services
• Develop and maintaining effective working relationships with all interfacing areas and stakeholders, both within ELS, the wider CDIO and suppliers, including our senior relationship management at the ExCom level
• Owning, driving and embedding Continual Service Improvement plans for the sub-function, prioritised via stakeholder engagement
• Effective recruitment, active career development, and strong performance management of staff in line with business needs, recognising and motivating those who are performing well, and supporting those who need development.
• Working closely with the rest of the Service Management & Integration leadership team, Service Owners and Business Relationship Managers to ensure CDIO operates as a cohesive, single team delivering IT services
• Contributing to the development of DevOps and other methodologies (Site Reliability Engineering within CDIO)
• Championing CDIO cultural change initiative and other initiatives as necessary
• Actively managing the limited resources available both human and financial to ensure the best match to business needs and value for money

Accountabilities

• Leading and develop our service management delivery experts to ensure IT services are managed end-to-end (across all technical components and end to end user/customer journeys) against a standard service lifecycle framework (e.g IT4IT)
• Driving proactive performance, availability and reliability of all IT services against challenging levels of service, working with a wide range of senior leaders across CDIO (“Head of”, Service Owners, Practice Managers)
• Manage each service team to consume a wide range of Service Management Practices (ITIL) and technical capabilities to support the daily “run” and “change” activities across each service, ensuring effective cross functional working across CDIO to ensure we manage our live IT services to a common set of standards, through a common CDIO framework
• Ensure IT services are managed by high performance cross functional service teams, that operate across organisational boundaries and work in a highly collaborative manner.

To fulfil these accountabilities, the role holder will:

• Lead and develop our service management delivery experts to ensure IT services are managed end-to-end (across all technical components and end to end user/customer journeys) against a standard service lifecycle framework (e.g IT4IT)
• Drive proactive performance, availability and reliability of all IT services against challenging levels of service, working with a wide range of senior leaders and operational leads across CDIO (“Head of”, Service Owners, Practice Managers)
• The role holder will be a key member of the new ELS Senior Leadership Team and will be accountable for the development and successful implementation of the new team they lead, as well as the wider performance of the ELS function.  
• Overall the success of the role holder and the team they lead will be based on their ability to drive stability to an ever changing IT estate, ensuring our teams champion live service requirements into development teams backlogs, maintaining the priority that operational activities require (e.g ensure patching is a priority on the backlog, and happens).

The role holder will lead the team, ensuring adequate resourcing and capacity across all service teams they oversee (12 service portfolio teams), ensuring appropriate support mechanisms are in place across a busy and broad directly managed service team with wider support provided by other CDIO functions  and external third parties (suppliers)

Person specification

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate relevant experience and effective delivery of the following essential criteria:

•  IT Service Management leader, with a proven ability to provide high-level assurance and governance to ensure outcomes from IT service management practices
• ITIL v4 foundation certified (or a higher certification) and demonstrable experience in its application of IT service management best practices and frameworks, ITIL or IT4IT with demonstrable experience of having applied these standards in a pragmatic and value-led approach.
• Proven experience implementing organisation wide controls for service management, based on best practice service management frameworks and lifecycle approaches . Deep experience of cross-organisational Service Management applied in a Product and Platform based service operating model.
• Experience in leading service change, including strategic decisions, adoption of new technologies, processes and methodologies to drive innovation and transformation
• Proven ability to influence large and dynamic group of senior stakeholders, using technical and non-technical communication. Proven ability to facilitate and orchestrate all IT Service Management forums at the most senior level.
• Demonstrable ability to lead and empower diverse teams across multiple locations, fostering a positive and inclusive culture while driving performance and development. Specific knowledge and experience of successfully driving Service Ownership maturity across diverse teams using various deployment methodologies like agile and waterfall approaches.