Grade 7 – Knowledge Systems Manager, Knowledge and Innovation.

134309

£50,500

London: £50,500 - National (Leeds and Bristol): £48,985

Permanent

Knowledge and Information Management

Flexible working, Full-time

1

Bristol, Leeds, London

The Organisation
The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the largest provider of legal services across government, working with all the main Whitehall Departments. From roads to rivers, and health to human rights, our work touches on most aspects of public life.
The department has 14 client-facing advisory teams who provide legal advice on the development, design and implementation of government policies and decisions, draft secondary legislation and work with Parliamentary Counsel on primary legislation. Our cross-cutting expert service groups for Litigation, Employment and Commercial Law provide specialist legal services to a wide range of government departments and public bodies.
We are a non-ministerial government department with more than 2,500 employees, around 1,800 of whom are solicitors or barristers. The department is based primarily in London but has teams in other locations including Bristol, Manchester, and Leeds.
Our vision is to be an outstanding legal organisation, committed to the highest standards of service and professionalism, as well as GLD being a brilliant place to work, where you can thrive and fulfil your potential.

The Division
Building on firm foundations, the Knowledge & Innovation (K&I) Group is undertaking an exciting period of development following the appointment of a new Director of Knowledge and the creation of our first integrated Legal Knowledge, Capability and Innovation Strategy.
We are seeking to make a step change in this area – to further professionalise and integrate our legal knowledge and legal learning activity across GLD and to develop innovative and flexible approaches to meeting our client needs – in support of our overarching departmental strategy and purpose.

Responsibilities

The Role

The Knowledge Systems Manager is a new role responsible for leading the specialist knowledge systems team, which forms part of the Knowledge & Innovation Group.

The role reports to the incoming Head of Legal Excellence, which role in turn reports to Ruth Ward, the Director of Knowledge. The role currently has four direct reports.

The postholder will be responsible for knowledge systems and associated learning and collaboration systems (provided for GLD lawyers and for clients and other colleagues across government) and in particular for the systems’ architecture and the ongoing curation of content. The postholder will be a member of project teams that investigate enhancements and new technologies and will work closely with colleagues in ICT and with the Change team as well as the broader K&I Group and lawyers across the department.

This newly created role will have responsibility for existing and new systems that are key to the ambition of the Knowledge & Innovation Group The role will offer the successful candidate an interesting and important opportunity to shape GLD’s future knowledge and learning systems roadmap alongside a number of other critical projects underway. The role will suit an aspiring and strongly motivated candidate with prior experience in a knowledge systems role and who is seeking a truly worthwhile career opportunity.

Responsibilities will include:

• Playing a lead role in the development during 2021 of the roadmap for GLD’s next generation of knowledge and learning systems.
• Driving the ongoing development of knowledge, learning and collaboration systems, content and associated processes and guidance in order to facilitate the effective sharing of knowledge and to enable members of GLD and relevant government departments to deliver and access legal services of the highest standard.
• Having business ownership of key knowledge systems or sections of system, currently:

o eKM - a SharePoint based knowledge management system for GLD lawyers
o gld.digital – a knowledge portal provided for access by GLD clients
o knowledge related pages on the GLD Intranet (Eagle)
o The Legal Information Online Network (LION) made available both to GLD lawyers and the wider government legal profession.

• Acting as a point of liaison and supplying advice in respect of the knowledge and learning portal provided by GLD panel law firms.
• Working closely with the project team to manage the ongoing roll out of eKM and transitioning to ‘business as usual’.
• Managing the knowledge systems team.
• Overseeing the curation of content in all knowledge systems.
• Liaising with the GLD specialists as relevant, for example with copyright legislation, accessibility and the requirements of GDPR.
• Measuring performance of knowledge systems and seeking and acting on feedback from users.
• Developing and maintaining relationships in the K&I group and in the wider GLD in order to drive knowledge systems’ initiatives.
• Assisting with the development of taxonomy and data mapping between knowledge and other organisational systems.
• Providing knowledge systems advice in relation to new knowledge system projects, software selection, systems upgrades and content migration.
• Planning and overseeing system migration projects where required.
• Working with innovation colleagues to investigate emerging technologies as they relate to knowledge systems.
• Keeping up to date with developments in knowledge management and technology and applying the implications of such developments to knowledge systems and processes within the organisation.
• Contributing to the assembly of the annual K&I Group budget and ensuring ongoing monitoring of expenditure in area of responsibility.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving

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

• A high level of IT literacy, particularly in relation to knowledge systems and enterprise search, SharePoint and O365, database functionality, intranet, extranet and website technology.
• Understanding of information systems and classification principles.
• An interest in, and knowledge of, technological advances and their potential impact on knowledge systems.