Laura Connor - Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) was one of the first Civil Service departments to work with Henley on apprenticeships. MoJ is a major government department at the heart of the justice system. His Majesty’s Court and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is an executive agency of the MoJ. It is responsible for the provision of administrative services and support to the independent judiciary across criminal, civil, family courts and tribunals across England and Wales to provide access to justice for the public.

A successful apprentice must be supported by their line manager and we were delighted to hear what Laura's line manager had to say.

“Laura has a complex operational role, covering a wide geographical area, with multijurisdictional responsibilities. On top of this demanding role, Laura has been diligently working on her apprenticeship degree, which has been challenging to complete whilst balancing the demands of her role. Laura has given everything to this apprenticeship, working hard to give her very best work to the highest standards. She has never settled for something that is "good enough" and has always strived for excellence. That Laura completed her Apprenticeship with Distinction is a fantastic reflection of Laura's hard work. An example of how Laura has linked her apprenticeship to her role in HMCTS is how Laura as led the work to develop a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion North West Strategy, which for the first time, covered every aspect of ED&I priorities for the region. This has involved drafting the strategy and tabling it for discussion at Delivery Board, leading workshops with the senior leaders and others, and developing joint objectives with the judiciary. Laura does nothing by halves, and her work on this has involved sourcing insight from articles and other literature to add broader context to the region's objectives. Laura’s work has added great value to the overall strategy for the region.” Helen Measures, Regional Delivery Director, North West Region, HMCTS

We asked Laura how she believes she's applied the knowledge, skills and behaviours to her work.

Starting at the Ministry of Justice

I joined the MoJ in 2005. I had the academic qualifications to become a solicitor and wanted to be a legal adviser in the Magistrates’ Court, so I secured a role as an Usher before then obtaining a training contract to be a legal adviser and fully qualify as a solicitor. In 2014 I became a Legal Team Manager with a small team under me, and at that stage, I took a Level 5 NVQ and thought it provided me with a good toolkit to manage my team.

Everything changed in 2020

In 2020 when I was promoted again. I moved into an operational delivery role as a Cluster Manager, from having a small team of 32 people to looking after 18 court sites across Cumbria and Lancashire with 300 plus staff with magistrates, crown and civil courts in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was a big leap, I had worked in Magistrates’ courts for 15 years and understood how they operated, but I needed to quickly learn about the other jurisdictions I was now responsible for. Being an apprentice was not new to me; learning on the job and going on training courses were also familiar to me, so when I saw the Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship advertised by our Learning and Development Team, I thought it would be good to expand on the tools in my toolkit.

The learning from the first module on strategy I immediately took back to work and used with the team to look at the Crown Court strategy. With the new managers I had, we determined the kind of working culture we wanted to create and saw it as an opportunity for a new start. We used DISC assessments and others to help identify the personality traits in our team and soon realised we had a full spectrum of the rainbow when it came to ways of thinking. Through this, we now have real diversity of thought.

When Covid struck suddenly, new ways of working and doing things had to be considered

We were either going to sink or swim. We had to scale up our operations to reduce delays caused by the restrictions the pandemic placed on our ability to run courts. Changing our ways of working and thinking to be digital by default which required new skills for our teams. It was deemed essential that courtrooms were up and running and providing the service they needed. We had to deal with a highly complex issue that involved fundamentally changing the standard working practice and introducing innovation through technology into areas where this had never been used before. I led the team to successfully deploy new video technology, to improve the access to justice.

While we needed to move at pace on changing how we worked, we also needed to ensure we were viewed as an attractive organisation. We increased our focus on staff well-being. We were able to convert fixed-term contract staff to full-time where possible, and more staff were recruited, and we were able to improve the diversity pool across the area.

I worked with a wide range of stakeholders at all levels to ensure that the strategic objectives were met within the context of the pandemic. The success of this has been recognised and shared as good practice with the wider organisation and on a public-facing blog: How tech solutions helped hear a complex murder trial - Inside HMCTS (blog.gov.uk)

Doing a Level 7 apprenticeship has been much tougher than my previous courses

Balancing this change in working while studying in parallel has not been easy. However, this programme with Henley has given me so much more than an expansion to my toolkit. Nothing panics me now, I take stuff in my stride, able to constantly review and consider change and able to problem solve. I wouldn’t have had this way of thinking and reacting if it wasn’t for the apprenticeship.

What tips would you give to anyone starting their apprenticeship?

Time management is essential. Get into a routine. Henley’s apprenticeship programmes are well-structured and cyclical, so I recommend blocking out time and using the cycle to do the prior reading. Hence, you have an overview of topics before you start. However, don’t be afraid to ask for an extension ahead of time if you need it.