National Business Centres (NBC)

Who are the National Business Centres?

The National Business Centres (NBC) were created in 2013, centralising administrative and contact functions in HMCTS. We work to ensure that bulk administration and customer contact are delivered to a high standard, allowing our customers to access the services they need from HMCTS.

The NBCs are based around the country, with a range of different areas of work covered by HMCTS, from Civil Money Claims, to Divorce, to Tribunals. We pride ourselves on being diverse and inclusive. Our roles are critical – and as the HMCTS reform programme continues, we will keep supporting our service users and colleagues in HMCTS with great performance and strong culture.

We support new and innovative ways of working, always striving to deliver the best outcomes. We deal with bulk operations in HMCTS, and therefore we have a unique chance to touch the lives of all our customers.

A message from our Delivery Director

What roles do we have in your region?

The types of work we do vary from office to office, but at our core, we have several key roles that are consistently found across the NBC.  We advertise for these at each site when vacancies become available but wherever your base – our standards and expectations are the same:

• Administrative roles
  Our administrative teams are the core of the NBC, delivering great customer service and operational processing work to enable Justice. The teams work across a variety of work and jurisdictions and get chance to not only deliver the processes and service to customers, but to shape and continuously improve the way we operate. Typical roles include processing paper and digital work from customers, contact centre roles, customer complaints and correspondence, and other administrative work. We empower our administrative staff to be the voice of our customers, giving them opportunity to make changes that matter to our users.
• Leadership roles
  NBC leaders are our front line and office management teams. Our leaders are inspirational, dedicated, and supportive of our services and staff. Leaders in the NBC can expect support and development courses to grow as leaders, giving them power to role model the HMCTS values for our staff. Typical leadership roles include team leaders, office managers; both of which will ensure our business processes are followed, people are engaged and developed, and that change is consistent and continual.
• Senior Leadership roles
  Senior leaders in the NBC manage our offices, clusters, and regional operations. They provide strategy, support, and consistent direction to our people. We expect leaders to be role models and out-of-the-box thinkers, giving our staff motivation and enthusiasm. Senior leaders balance priorities, linking the NBC with wider HMCTS, and ensure our stakeholders are well managed. Typical roles include general management, Change and Support team leadership, supporting and guiding reform colleagues on the future of NBC services.
• Regional Support Unit
  Our team consists of Band E to B support officers, who work across a range of specialist and non-specialist areas, giving critical support to the region on things like Finance, Governance, Recruitment, Performance, and Customer Service. Their work includes data management, planning, reporting, and corporate support.
• Change Team
  Our team consists of several Band B and C Change Managers, who help us deliver and implement change across the NBC, supporting our staff through change and transition. The team’s roles involve projects, change, continuous improvement, and stakeholder management.

Our ways of working and culture

As well as the benefits of working for HMCTS and the MoJ, the NBC aims to provide frameworks and ways of working that make it enjoyable and positively challenging to work for us. Some of these include:

• Hybrid working – our teams are currently working from home a percentage of their time, and the office the rest. We are still in our pandemic ways of working, but as we return to normal, we will be discussing with our teams how we all work together.
• People Promise – we are committed to the HMCTS Values, and our promise is a contract between staff, managers, and leaders to all play their part in living the values. We use our promise to create improvement activity, implement policies that reflect what our staff need, and to make the NBC a great place to work.
• Learning and Development – the NBC is dedicated to building capability. We will talk more about learning and development later on in this page, but as a core part of our business we have 5 days of learning for all staff, as well as additional time out of your role to develop in our numerous programmes.
• Ownership – the NBC puts continuous improvement at the heart of our processes, and as such, we encourage all our staff to contribute. We give ownership to our teams to make changes that will improve our services.

The NBC works within the HMCTS Values, creating a great environment for everyone to work. We are keen that we are inclusive, diverse, and supportive. As part of the HMCTS Values, we encourage open and collaborative working.

Developing our People

All our staff receive on the job training and support, helping you settle into the NBC. As well as supporting your role in the business, we’re keen to support and develop you as an individual. We’re fully supportive of career pathways and job families, and no matter which family you fall into, we have opportunities for progression and development to suit.

• Core Capability offer – all staff benefit from access to Civil Service standard learning, HMCTS and MoJ learning products, and key development materials that will help you with your role and career
• Job families – in the NBC, we are part of the Operational Delivery and Leadership professions, and as such, we’ve made clear links between roles and development. You will benefit from support in identifying and developing the next steps and actions you can take to develop within your chosen job family.
• Development programmes – we operate a yearly intake of development programmes for staff, managers, Summer Internships, and Continuous Improvement capability – ensuring there’s always a learning route for accessible, on-the-job development
• “Step up to Leadership” – for aspiring leaders, we run an in-house development scheme to build leadership behaviours, knowledge, and skills – allowing our staff to build the necessary skills to seek leadership roles when they become available
• Apprentice Managers scheme – to support growth on the job, the NBC runs a yearly apprenticeship scheme to onboard new managers who will benefit from completing an Operational Delivery Leadership apprenticeship to gain access to key skills to better complete their job. They will be given 20% on the job time to complete this, as well as support from the organisation.

Where are we based?

The NBC is a national region, so we have sites across England. Our offices are based in the following cities:

• Bradford
• Bury St. Edmunds
• Darlington
• Leicester
• Northampton
• Salford
• Southampton

Some of our jobs can be carried out remotely, with all our staff in reach of their nearest NBC site for regular touchpoints and to spend time with their teams.

Want to know more?

Thanks for reading about the National Business Centres! We hope you found this page useful as a summary of our region and the work we do.

If you have any questions about the NBC region, our Regional Support Unit would be happy to let you know more about us. You can email us at NBC.RSU@Justice.gov.uk and we will get back to you with information.