Senior Service Designer

At the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), we design user-centred services that make the criminal justice system easier to use, quicker to deliver, and fairer for all.

As a Senior Service Designer at CPS, you design and improve end-to-end services that support the delivery of justice, making sure they meet user needs and organisational goals. You work within multi-disciplinary delivery teams and collaborate with service owners and operational colleagues to build a shared understanding of services, use evidence to shape decisions, and develop service improvements across digital and non-digital channels.

You lead service design activity for complex services, or significant parts of services, helping teams take a strategic, user-centred approach to change. You apply the Service Standard and government design principles so that services are inclusive, accessible and effective for the people who use them.

This role involves collaboration across team, programme and organisational boundaries, including with colleagues across the Criminal Justice System where needed, to join up services and improve how they work from end-to-end. You also support the growth of service design capability at CPS by sharing good practice, supporting colleagues and showing stakeholders the value of service design.

You report to the Lead Service Designer and may provide day-to-day support, mentoring or line management for other designers.

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. Candidates are expected to commence employment as soon as possible following the expiry of their notice period. Requests for significantly later start dates may not be accommodated.

Your roles and responsibilities:

• You lead service design activity for complex services, or significant parts of services, making sure work is grounded in user needs and supports organisational goals.
• You collaborate within multidisciplinary teams, with service owners, and operational colleagues to understand how services work now and identify opportunities to improve them.
• You map and analyse end-to-end services across digital and non-digital channels, including user journeys, pain points, waste points, dependencies, risks and constraints.
• You develop service design artefacts such as journey maps, service blueprints, prototypes, concepts and recommendations that help teams make informed decisions and implement change.
• You facilitate workshops and collaborative design activities with users, stakeholders and multi-disciplinary teams.
• You apply the Service Standard, government design principles, accessibility requirements and inclusive design practice to help teams design effective and accessible services.
• You communicate service design work clearly to senior stakeholders and delivery teams, explaining the value of service design and the impact of proposed changes.
• You support the growth of service design capability at CPS by sharing good practice, supporting colleagues and providing mentoring or line management where required.

A copy of the full job description is attached.

Drop in sessions

If you would like to find out more about this role and working at CPS we will be running drop in sessions on Teams:

• 12 November 16:30 to 17:00
• 17 November 16:30 to 17:00
• 18 November 13:30 to 14:00

Teams link: Teams meeting join link

Meeting ID: 341 431 425 094 872 8

Passcode: do3nb6by

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

Recruitment process

The recruitment process consists of an online application, interview and assessment. These are expected to take place on w/c 14 December 2026.

Your interview takes place online through Microsoft Teams. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch with guidance. If you have any queries about this, contact dimitra.siakavara@cps.gov.uk

You should keep this week free or notify us if you're not available. We'll make every effort to accommodate your date preferences but we can't guarantee it.

Assessment

We ask you to complete an assessment as part of the recruitment process for this role. We will provide details upon invitation to interview.

Personal statement

We ask you to complete a personal statement of no more than 750 words. You need to demonstrate the following experience required for this role:

• experience of applying service design methods to understand and improve end-to-end services in a complex organisation.
• a good understanding of the Government Design Principles, Service Standard, agile delivery and evidence-based approaches to service improvement.
• experience working in multidisciplinary teams, collaborating with user researchers, business analysts, product managers, delivery managers, designers and technical colleagues.
• strong facilitation and collaboration skills, with experience planning and running workshops or design activities with users, stakeholders and delivery teams.
• experience creating service design outputs such as journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, prototypes, concepts and recommendations.
• ability to communicate complexity clearly, helping teams and stakeholders understand user needs, service problems, opportunities and trade-offs.
• experience using qualitative and quantitative evidence to inform service design decisions and measure the impact of service improvements.
• an understanding of accessibility and inclusive design, and experience applying these principles to the design of services.
• experience supporting colleagues, sharing good practice or contributing to the development of service design capability.

In addition, you need to demonstrate the Crown Prosecution Service or Civil Service values.

Behaviours

You are also asked to complete a statement of no more than 250 words for the behaviour Making Effective Decisions, setting out how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience match the specified behaviours and requirements.

The panel has the right to assess the essential experience first. If the standard on the essential experience isn’t met, the behaviour 'Making Effective Decisions' won’t be considered and your application won’t progress. The panel also has the right to raise the minimum standard pass mark. The panel may also refer to the lead behaviour at the interview stage to determine merit order.

Interview/Assessment

We use behaviours to help us understand your experience, to see if you're a good fit for the role. You are assessed against SEO in the Civil Service success profiles behaviours framework. We are assessing 3 behaviours at interview stage:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Essential Experience will be assessed through the assessment

CV

You’re not required to upload your CV. However, when submitting your application there is a ‘CV section’. You are required to provide information about your employment and/or academic history for the past three years. skills, and qualification details. You must also provide a link to a portfolio of your work. This should show examples of your service design practice and the impact of your work. The CV section will be assessed.

It’s your responsibility to provide the specified information in the requested format to ensure that you're considered for the post.

If you're unable to cover three years through employment or academic history, you must provide a character reference for clearance purposes.

Strengths

Strengths are tested at interview stage - the strengths tested are not shared before the interview.

Other

This is a full-time post. We do consider requests for flexible, part-time working and job share, always considering the operational needs of the department.

Please note that the CPS is unable to offer visa sponsorship. Therefore, if you require visa sponsorship to work in the UK, you will not meet the eligibility criteria for this role.

Clearance

If successful, you are required to secure a Disclosure and Barring Service check, for which you must have a current valid UK address.

If successfully appointed, we ask you to complete a character enquiry form, and nationality and immigration questionnaire.

If you're a Crown Prosecution Service member of staff, you won’t need to do a Disclosure and Barring Service check as you already hold this clearance.

The job you’re applying for is covered by Article 3(a) of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, consequently Section 4(2) of that Act doesn’t apply. You’re required to disclose all previous convictions and cautions including spent convictions. Failing to make a full declaration will result in withdrawing your offer of employment if our checks reveal convictions that haven’t been disclosed.

Reserve list

If you're recommended by the selection panel but not appointed to the current vacancies, you’re put on a reserve list for 12 months. You may be offered another Senior Service Designer post in the CPS if a vacancy comes up during this period. We may also approach candidates on the waiting list to fill other roles that require similar knowledge and experience.

Fraud check

The Crown Prosecution Service provides a Fair Processing Notice to all new applicants after they’ve been successful at interview. These candidates are informed that, as one aspect of pre-employment screening, their personal details – name, National Insurance number and date of birth – are checked against the Internal Fraud Database. We won't employ anyone included on the database unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances.

The Strategic Resourcing team in the Crown Prosecution Service will, on behalf of the vacancy holder, inform applicants when they are refused employment because of their inclusion in the Internal Fraud Database.

Civil Service Commission

If you’re dissatisfied with the recruitment process and wish to make a complaint, please contact Strategic.Resourcing@cps.gov.uk with your concerns.

If you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a further complaint, please click on the following link to the Civil Service Commission complaints page Recruitment Complaints - Civil Service Commission

Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles can be found at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/

Details of the Civil Service Nationality Rules are located at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules

Candidates are subject to UK immigration requirements. For the most up-to-date information on the requirements of working in the UK, please go to the UK Visas and Immigration website at https://www.gov.uk/browse/visas-immigration/work-visas

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