Week 1 – 5 September

There’s no prospect that I’ll forget my first week at the CPS. But I did want to reflect on some of the things I’ve learnt and ideas that I’ve had during the week.

Two important national news stories at the start of the week featured issues that directly relate to our work, which was a useful reminder of the extra profile associated with working for a national organisation.

I’m structuring my induction around a set of outcomes and tasks that I’ve agreed with my boss. I’ve got a lot to learn so it’s been helpful to provide a bit of focus. I am keen to move beyond my discovery phase and start contributing to our work but I had to check myself on a couple of occasions to make sure I wasn’t rushing to judgement. I tried to preface things I said with a caveat that they were likely to be wrong, but I will need to be careful to hold lightly those quickly-formed views.

The breadth of stuff that the team is working on is almost intimidating. It all seems important and I don’t yet have a clear view of where there might be capacity issues. But I’ve also been wondering how we might ensure that the language we use helps tie the task more clearly to the desired outcomes.

The kit and productivity tools exceeded my expectations. I was nervous moving from away from the iPad and Chromebook that I used in Hackney. But the new laptop in the CPS performs really well and Office 365 has some really useful features. The team’s working really hard but we need to make sure we’re getting more of these devices into the hands of colleagues. And we could probably do a bit more to celebrate the efficiency gains the devices achieve.

The energy and openness in Mark’s team, but also across the wider Service also stood out. Given the scale of the challenge in the criminal justice system, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But people have been unfailingly patient with my basic questions, generous with their time and open to ideas. And Louise has done a terrific job of guiding me through the organisation. I have noticed a bit of a habit of referring to people by their level in the organisation, which we need to kick because it’s actually a much flatter culture than it suggests.

On Wednesday I attended the Digital Transformation Leaders conference for people across the CPS to hear more about the big issues, challenges and improvements that are underway. It was a really useful forum to hear from people who use our systems routinely are really invested in their success. On my first day I also saw a joint statement from the trade unions emphasising the value of user research – so that was encouraging.

I am really excited by the Future Casework Tools programme, being led by Gemma. We gleaned some useful feedback from potential suppliers following an engagement event before I joined and Michael and the team have got a fair bit to work through so that we can provide some clear guardrails for the . But from my perspective, I hope it means that I can help influence some of the thinking about the technology vision and strategy for the programme.

Next week will continue to be a busy sheep dip into a whole range of issues. I’m going to try and use it to figure out a couple of the key concepts that I want to land with my new colleagues and test some ways in which I can start to add value. But as this week draws to a close, I’m more excited about what’s to come than I was a week ago – which is energising.