18829 - Joint Head of Risk Assessment Data Science and AI

Please note this role requires you to pass BPSS clearance. We're recruiting for a Joint Head of Risk Assessment Data Science and AI here at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative Probation and Electronic Monitoring Data team. This role aligns against Lead Data Scientist from the Government Digital and Data Framework The Service Transformation Group brings together, for the first time, our digital, data, AI, security, project delivery and transformation teams alongside our three fantastic agencies: the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). There are two core aims of the Service Transformation Group:

• To provide the best public services in the world.
• To have the happiest team in government.
Justice Data sources, fixes and links data from across the justice system to develop products, tools and insights for leaders, policy makers, and front-line staff. We deliver the right high-quality data at the right time to the right people to improve decision making. Risk Assessment Data Science and AI (RADSAI) is a unit within the Probation and Electronic Monitoring Data Division. RADSAI works with His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to provide insights on the risks and other issues presented by offenders who are on the HMPPS caseload or being sentenced at court, such as their risks of reoffending, and to help HMPPS practitioners assess these risk/issues fairly and consistently. Effective risk assessment is an important part of how frontline staff working in the Prison and Probation Service make defensible decisions about risk. You will be jointly leading the team that develops, improves and explains the data science tools that estimate likelihood of reoffending and support operational staff decision-making. You will provide the Data Science expertise and work jointly with the current Head of RADSAI to build consensus across stakeholders and work closely with policy, operational, data and digital colleagues to effectively prioritise and deliver your team's portfolio of work. Over the next year, RADSAI will deliver a portfolio of impactful projects focused on improving offender risk assessment and practitioner decision making. This includes advancing actuarial models used by HMPPS to better identify higher risk offenders, with a strong focus on reducing Violence Against Women and Girls. The team will explore new analytical methods, develop clear visualisations and explanations to support practitioner understanding, and build products to efficiently collate and summarise criminal history data. Work will also include applying language modelling to assessment text to generate insights on offender risk, and maintaining large scale datasets and visualisation tools that support analysis of the HMPPS caseload. This is an exciting time to join RADSAI, as the unit expands to satisfy growing demand. This role is critical to how practitioners operate and is at the intersection of technology, operations and policy. You will work with the existing Head of RADSAI to set up new teams and ambitious new projects, as well as moving forward the work of our established teams. You'll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including


• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King's birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work-life balance.
• Employees are allocated 10% of their working time for personal and professional development.
• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best-in-class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!
You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.