Senior service owner

Band 8c · Service owner · 634 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Service owner

Most often performed at Civil Service grade G7 or G6.

A service owner is an accountable leader that brings together a multidisciplinary team to ensure delivery of a quality service. They advocate for their service and teams, and develop an open and trust-based culture.
At this role level, you will:
ensure a strategy is in place that delivers the intended vision, outcomes and benefits
prioritise areas of development, balancing user needs, business requirements and policy
ensure appropriate governance and assurance is in place
ensure appropriate funding is in place
create the culture and environment for the team to do their best work

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

Responsibilities

Be accountable for a group of related digital health services, or for a critical service used across the care system, such as the electronic patient record.
Set a multi-year strategy for the services with executive, clinical, and operational leaders.
Own budgets and major supplier relationships across the services.
Accept and escalate clinical, information, and operational risk at a senior level, working with the clinical safety officer and the executive owner of information risk.
Lead service owners and multidisciplinary teams, and build a culture of openness and continuous improvement.
Lead the response to major service incidents that affect patient care, and the learning that follows.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Adapting to delivery methodologiesUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: set and iterate standards for working within different delivery methodologies actively promote collaboration and agreement to ensure the team delivers value at the right time experiment with new and innovative ways of working to enhance delivery outcomes research new and evolving delivery methodologies and identify how your role would work within them
Applying user-centred insightsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: advocate for a range of effective research approaches across the organisation coach others in making decisions that meet user needs across a range of channels advocate for continuous use of user insights in teams use user insights to make strategic decisions to provide the best user experience
Financial ownershipUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: ensure a business case is in place that provides sustainable funding identify measurable benefits that represent good value for money allocate money and make spending decisions across competing priorities enhance and own relationships with suppliers to increase quality and deliver good value outcomes act as an escalation point and work with stakeholders to manage financial and commercial risk
Governance and assuranceUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: ensure appropriate and proportionate governance and assurance is in place and is continuously improved, aligned to organisational and government needs guide teams through governance and assurance processes, such as service assessments, to ensure standards are met share the team's governance and assurance processes so stakeholders trust them to deliver value in a sustainable way
Leading performance and benefitsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: ensure appropriate measures are in place to deliver valuable outcomes to users and agreed business benefits ensure metrics are used to monitor, manage and prioritise delivery and inform decision making demonstrate the value of the service and build understanding with stakeholders by ensuring effective data and insights are shared
Life cycle managementUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: work and consult with the right people at the right time to move through the life cycle and deliver value use evidence to decide when a team should continue, change direction or stop identify tools and techniques required at different phases of the life cycle guide colleagues and stakeholders through different phases of the life cycle
Operational managementUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: ensure a scalable operating model is in place to provide a resilient, high quality service coordinate teams from operations, policy, digital and delivery to operate and iterate a service ensure teams understand the importance of efficient service operations identify and overcome operational constraints act as the escalation point for major operational issues
Stakeholder relationship managementUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: direct the stakeholder relationship strategy for your teams ensure stakeholder's objectives are set and support teams to meet them influence and negotiate with senior stakeholders to resolve issues and enable progress
Strategic ownershipUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: support and coach others in creating and implementing a successful long-term strategy and tactical approach that others agree with influence and persuade stakeholders to support delivery of the strategy support with strategic decision making ensure strategic alignment across the organisation
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: shape organisational strategy using a deep understanding of the health and care system represent the organisation with health and care partners and leaders anticipate how policy and service changes will affect digital services and care
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead hazard identification and risk assessment for a product or change write and maintain hazard logs and clinical safety case reports agree risk controls with product teams and check that they work advise teams on applying clinical risk management standards
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead data protection impact assessments and information sharing agreements advise teams on lawful basis, consent, confidentiality, and retention investigate incidents and recommend improvements
Medical device software regulationThis reference	Working (2)	You can: follow a software life cycle process that meets medical device standards produce the records that such a process requires
Organisational risk managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: design the organisation's risk management framework and appetite advise the board on strategic risks
Budget managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: manage large or multiple budgets and set financial plans make funding trade-offs across services
People managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: lead managers and shape the culture of a large area design workforce plans and organisational change coach leaders and resolve complex people issues
Corporate governance and complianceThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: run the governance cycle for boards and committees review policies and advise on compliance

Typical qualifications and experience

Extensive experience of leading large or critical services, including their budgets and suppliers.

Band 8c outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge, and wide organisational and sector understanding.
Autonomy: Sets strategy for a function; accountable to a director.
Scope: A function or department.
Leadership: Leads a function through several management layers.
Accountability: A function's performance, workforce, and budget.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	6	Gives highly complex, highly contentious information where there are significant barriers to acceptance, using the highest level of communication skills.	60
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	5	Forms long-term strategic plans, with uncertainty and effects across the organisation.	60
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	5	Implements and develops a range of policies or services for a directorate.	45
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	5	Holds or sets budgets, or manages assets, for several services.	45
Responsibility for people	4	Line manages a function or department, designs training programmes as a main duty, or delivers a full range of HR services.	32
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	1	Carries out surveys or audits for own work; occasionally takes part in research or testing.	5
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	3	Frequent concentration on unpredictable work, or occasional prolonged concentration.	12
Emotional effort	2	Occasional exposure, or frequent indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	11
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8c: 630 to 674)			634

The UK GDaD PCF has one service owner level, at G7 or G6. This reference adds a senior level at Band 8c for services that are critical to care across the organisation, with budgets across several services (financial resources level 5) and regular involvement in serious incidents that affect patients (emotional effort level 2).