Senior Data Scientist - Data Science Hub, Data & Analytical Services Directorate, Ministry of Justice

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Overview

We have an exciting permanent opportunity in our data linking team, working with our award-winning team behind the Splink software. This is based within the Data Science Hub within the MoJ Data & Analytical Services Directorate at Band B (SEO) and working on the cross government 'Better Outcomes through Linked Data' Programme (BOLD).

The salary will be negotiable within the Band B (SEO) pay range depending on your skills and expertise as assessed in the selection process. We welcome applications from candidates based across the UK. Candidates will have the option of being based in the Leeds or London HQ offices (with flexible working arrangements available) or your nearest Justice Collaboration Centre (JCC) or Justice Satellite Office (JSO). JCCs are based in Liverpool, Leeds, South Tyneside, Nottingham, Cardiff, Ipswich and Brighton. JSOs are based in Stafford, Sheffield and Manchester. Periodic travel may be required for collaboration with the wider programme team.

Interviews are likely to take place in late June/early July 2022. We will keep a merit list for a year for those who successfully pass the interview board but who are not offered a post immediately as similar posts will become available during 2022.

The Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice is a major government department, at the heart of the justice system. We work to protect and advance the principles of justice. Our vision is to deliver a world-class justice system that works for everyone in society. A key priority is to become strongly data and evidence driven by ensuring it is used to improve our business performance and the justice system for our citizens.

The Data Science HubThe Data Science Hub sits at the heart of MoJ’s push to use data to bear on some of the Ministry’s thorniest problems. We are a multi-disciplinary team of 90+ people from a range of professions and backgrounds. We most commonly use Python, R and Spark in our AWS Analytical Platform through our Macbooks, with data from the business that’s extracted, transformed and loaded by our data engineering teams.

We have delivered high impact data products that have been productionised and widely used across the business and adhoc insight that directly influences corporate, operational and policy decisions. These span the data science spectrum including automation, advanced visualisation, machine learning, data linking, natural language processing and optimisation. We are now collaborating with MoJ Digital with the aim of getting live data pipelines as new services are being built, with the plan to deliver data science products through these services.

You can find more examples of our work and ways of working in the appendix section at the end of this document.

BOLD

BOLD is a large and complex programme that consists of sharing data across government, building a linked dataset, and delivering 4 'demonstrator pilot projects' that will use the linked dataset to tackle specific policy challenges across substance misuse, homelessness, victims of crime and reoffending. BOLD is an exciting cross-departmental programme funded by the Treasury’s Shared Outcomes Fund. This gives us the opportunity to truly work collaboratively across departmental boundaries, working as a single team with a single vision: deliver better outcomes for vulnerable populations through the use of linked data. If you like challenging problems with real-world impact and have always hoped government could learn to use data better, apply for this role and help us transform the use of data to drive outcomes and decision-making across government.

What you’ll do

You will work as part of multi-disciplinary teams consisting of data scientists and data engineers as well as interacting with other data roles. The majority of projects will be conducted on the MoJ Analytical Platform using Github for version control and effective collaboration, and projects will include working to achieve data linking across the Ministry of Justice and partner government departments.

Specific responsibilities will be tailored to reflect your strengths and development needs, but you will also contribute to:

The vision for data linking, recommending and implementing ways to improve the quality of our in house software, data, quality assurance and outputs;Building best practices such as version control, unit testing, code review, and well documented applications;Working across Spark, SQL and Python to undertake linking tasks, such as data set linking, developing ways to understand link quality and implementing improvement to the Splink library (https://github.com/moj-analytical-services/splink).A strong collaborative working environment within the team, and interacting positively with a variety of stakeholders to build community, capability and credibility in both Ministry of Justice and across other government departments;The team’s awareness of the wider data linking landscape and emerging technologies.

Who you are

We’re interested in people who have:

experience of applying data linking or data science techniques to messy datasets;experience in writing clear and concise code, and working with scripting/programming and database programming languages, specifically Python and SQL. Use of Spark is an advantage;a track record of using quality assurance and automated testing in analytical work, including producing robust and reproducible analysis using modern version control software;strategic thinking and problem solving aligned with organisational goals, with ability to identify preventative measures and opportunities for data innovation and promoting adoption and learning of new tools and techniques;experience of working with diverse stakeholder groups to deliver data products and explaining data concepts and practices to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

How to apply

You’ll need to submit an anonymised CV and Statement of Suitability as part of your application. You will not be considered if you do not provide both.

Your CV should be no more than 2 pages long and should show us your work history and previous experience. It should be well structured, succinct and written in clear language. Try to avoid just listing technology keywords; we are interested in how you have used different tools to solve problems.

Your Statement of Suitability should be no more than 750 words and should give us examples of how your skills and experience match those needed for this role. Consider giving an example for each bullet point, in the skills requirements ‘Who you are’ section and use work you have completed to demonstrate how you meet each one.

All these requirements are important for the job, however we do not expect candidates to be expert in all of them. Just give as much evidence as you can for each and make sure you cover ‘how’ you demonstrated the requirements and the impact of your work, as well as ‘what’ you did. Again, if you are interested in applying but are not sure you have all the skills listed, please do apply and give us the opportunity to consider you as a candidate.

Selection process

There will be an initial sift of applicants through comparing submitted evidence against the ‘Who you are’ bullets. This usually takes two weeks, depending on the number of applications.

Those who make it through the initial sift will be invited to a Civil Service Success Profile interview. In the Civil Service we use Success Profiles to help us find the right person for the job. We will be using a mixture of methods to assess your abilities, strengths, experience, technical skills and behaviours. We highly recommend learning about Success Profiles and using the Situation, Task, Action, Result and Reflection (STARR) framework when structuring your answers.

The highest scoring candidates that pass the interview will be offered the roles. The whole process can take a month. Other candidates that pass the interview will be kept on a merit list for 12 months.

Presentation

At the interview we will be asked to give a five-minute presentation on a data science project you have delivered. Details of this will be sent to candidates before the interview.

Behaviours

The following behaviours will be tested at interview:

Managing a Quality ServiceChanging and Improving

In your examples you should include evidence on ‘how’ you demonstrated the requirements and the impact of your work, as well as ‘what’ you did.

Technical – Data science skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

data science expertise and technical leadershipworking practicesprogramming and coding skills

Technical – Analytical Competency

If you are an existing profession analyst (GORS/GSS/GSR/GES) and applying on promotion you will be asked for evidence of how you meet the requirements of the relevant professional competency framework, with particular focus on communicating analysis and achieving impact.

Please refer to the analytical profession frameworks in the appendix section for more information.

For Further Information

If you have any queries about the role or application process, or wish to discuss, please contact Ross Wyatt (ross.wyatt@justice.gov.uk) or Robin Linacre (robin.linacre@digital.justice.gov.uk)

Appendix

Examples of our work and ways of working:

https://mojdigital.blog.gov.uk/2018/04/05/pushing-the-boundaries-of-data-science-with-the-moj-analytical-platform/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2058802X.2020.1726654https://towardsdatascience.com/fuzzy-matching-and-deduplicating-hundreds-of-millions-of-records-using-apache-spark-93d0f095001fhttps://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2019/11/06/fostering-a-data-science-innovation-culture/https://dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/30/engineering-the-data-of-the-future/https://github.com/moj-analytical-services

Civil Service Success Profiles used for selection process:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles

Analytical profession frameworks used for assessing the technical analytical competency at interview:

Government Operational Research Service (GORS): https://tinyurl.com/y9q3akcgGovernment Statistician Group (GSG): https://tinyurl.com/y52hcsh5>Government Social Research Service (GSR): https://tinyurl.com/y9gwny96 Government Economic Service (GES): https://tinyurl.com/ybh5>