Service Design & Insight Lead
£46,041 to £49,083

 Welcome to Newham, a borough that's full of life

Newham is a vibrant, ambitious borough, and we are proud of our commitment to ‘Building a Fairer Newham’. Our borough is incredibly diverse, creating a truly unique and cherished place for all who call it home, and a strong sense of community spirit thrives here. You'll find iconic landmarks like the London Stadium and Olympic Park as well as East Bank, the UK's newest cultural quarter, adding to Newham’s appeal. 

At the Transformation Directorate, we are all about driving change and making a difference. Our dedicated team of service designers work tirelessly to provide innovative solutions to complex issues and to fix the simpler pain points. We are on a mission to transform services and meet the needs of our residents better than ever before. It is an exciting time to join us, so come and be a part of this amazing journey!

About the job

Good services do not happen by accident. Our Service Design & Insight Team is dedicated to conducting thorough research and gaining insights to understand the needs of Newham residents so our services can respond to them. We take a collaborative approach, working with a wide range of stakeholders, to design and enhance services that we test rigorously to ensure they have a positive and ongoing impact.

As a valued member of our Service Design & Insight Team, you will have the opportunity to support and lead service design projects. Your insights will be crucial in designing and prototyping services that improve the lives of people living and working in Newham, whilst also making it easy for staff to deliver. You will be working alongside other change professionals in the Transformation Directorate, and draw on the support of our Digital Directorate whenever needed.

The work we do is far-reaching and varied, dealing with seemingly simple interactions or with large complex social problems. As a corporate team, we collaborate with the entire council and our strategic partners whenever needed. This year some of our projects have included redesigning our complaints resolution service so we can respond to people quickly and in an empathetic way, preventing people in temporary accommodation from going into debt, redesigning housing letters sent to residents to improve clarity and reduce failure demand, and applying behavioural insights to a clean streets campaign to reduce littering.

Why work with us?

We are dedicated to creating a great working environment in Newham where you can develop your skills and your career. We offer:

• A fantastic package with a salary range of £46,041 to £49,083
• An enviable secure and flexible salary based pension scheme
• Newham’s bespoke transformation training, which this year included co-design training from a world renowned expert
• Coaching and support from our Service Design & Insight Managers and the Head of Service Design & Insight
• Encouragement to develop your networks, such as presenting at SDinGov and being an active member of the Local Government Service Design Network, which Newham founded and now has over 200 members nationally
• Choice of office based or hybrid working, depending on your preference 
• Wellbeing services, as well as leisure and discount benefits
• The opportunity to work in a richly diverse, challenging, and supportive inner London Borough.

About you

We are searching for someone who is excited by design thinking and applying it in a local authority setting. You should have proven experience as a service designer or in related disciplines.

We value your curious mindset, as you will need to ask many questions to understand problems and uncover the reasons behind them. You should be able to analyse quantitative data, such as demand and performance data, while also considering qualitative information about residents that reveals their experience and tells their stories.

You are a great communicator, excellent at building trusting relationships, and enjoy facilitating sessions that encourage meaningful participation from everyone. It is important that you are comfortable holding uncertainty and testing ideas before converging on the best way forward. You have experience building ideas into concepts and designing services that are ready for implementation.

You enjoy working with others and actively share your knowledge, skills and ideas with colleagues. Incorporating behavioural insights into service design is an emerging discipline so we are looking for someone who is eager to learn about and apply behavioural science to enhance their existing service design skills.

https://www.newham.gov.uk/downloads/file/7195/jd-service-design-and-insight-lead-jan2023-word-3607

CLOSING DATE 10.5.24

Additional information

We are committed to creating an inclusive, anti-racist environment for all. When you apply for a job at Newham, your application is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, faith, gender identity or sexual orientation. If you share our vision and values, and you bring the experience and skills we need, that’s all that matters to us.

The London Borough of Newham has important responsibilities for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. If you are appointed to a job that involves working with these groups, you may be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Please attach your supporting statement, explaining in no more than x2 A4 sides why and how you meet the criteria for this role.

We practice anonymised recruitment. Please ensure that you remove all personal information from any documents that you upload.

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

The London Borough of Newham is located only 5 miles east of London. It is well positioned with access to all major networks in London and the south east.  It is well connected  by public transport with, bus, tube and DLR. When the Crossrail service opens it will call at Custom House close to our council offices and also Stratford station and from there to central London. The London City Airport which serves major European cities is located at Royal Albert Dock. Newham has the youngest overall population in the country. It was one of the six host boroughs for the 2012 Summer Olympics and contains most of the Olympic Park including the London Stadium. It has a thriving arts quarter with the Theatre Royal Stratford East offering excellent entertainment for all the family. There is the University of East London which has two campuses in Newham, one in Stratford and another next to the regenerated Royal Albert Dock. It also has a large Westfield shopping Centre in Stratford which has all the major retailers there.

Newham has a large housing regeneration programme that will build over 1,000 new council homes by 2022.