Rich Blake – Senior Delivery Manager

An experienced agile, servant leader.

I help teams deliver the software that users need.

I use modern UX, Lean and agile methods to help policy, data and engineering teams do their best work.

My teams run like clockwork, are creative, fun, and are a safe place to experiment.

I simplify complex issues and help teams focus on value.

Experience

Senior Delivery Manager

Government Digital Service — Nov 2023 to present

• Led a discovery into Pay by Bank and made the case for bringing Open Banking to GOV.UK Pay.
• Managed an infrastructure team that replaced their logging pipeline with inclusive planning and strong delivery.
• Led a technical team to make refunds 98.6% faster, while staying compliant with industry and security standards.
• Improved team experience metrics: Happiness +15.4%, Achievement +14.8%, Collaboration +46.2%.
• Regularly praised for communication, use of data, organisation, motivation, openness and coaching.
• Led a level one PCI DSS assessment.

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Delivery Manager

Government Digital Service — Dec 2019 to Nov 2023

• Led a user-centred technical team running GOV.UK Pay, handling £27.9m in payments each week.
• Reduced feature cycle time from quarters to months through coaching and evolving ways of working.
• Delivered complex engineering work: recurring payments, digital wallets and webhooks.
• Helped launch the Open Banking team to rapidly prototype and test the riskiest assumptions.
• Created the plan that brought accessibility regulation changes into UK law and set up a ministerial advisory group.
• Used Kanban metrics to brief senior leaders and forecast delivery with confidence.
• Coached a team in Rwanda to create a cloud strategy and set up spend controls.
• Supported Government in Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina to adopt user-centred approaches that fit their context.

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Delivery Manager

Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government — Oct 2018 to Dec 2019

• Led a digital policy team delivering a £7.5m fund for local government transformation.
• Worked with an economist and architect to write a successful HM Treasury spend review bid.
• Briefed Rishi Sunak MP to keep him engaged and informed.
• Ran successful procurement campaigns to bring in the right suppliers.

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Delivery Manager

Cabinet Office — Jan 2018 to Oct 2018

• Managed delivery across three teams to produce award-winning, user-centred data and commentary.
• Supported leadership to shape and secure buy-in for the Ethnicity Facts and Figures beta plan.
• Recruited roles that enabled a sustainable pace of work and managed a £2m budget.
• Helped a data team adopt simple agile methods to remove pain points.
• Taught Liberating Structures to shift the culture towards trust and collaboration.

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Delivery Manager

Government Digital Service — Apr 2017 to Jan 2018

• Scrum Master across six Digital Marketplace teams supporting £3bn in government digital spend.
• Delivered key iterations of G-Cloud 9 and Digital Outcomes and Specialists 2.
• Trained public sector service owners on agile delivery.
• Restarted and organised a peer coaching group.

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Services I’ve helped deliver

Here are a few of the world-leading services and platforms I’ve helped teams deliver.

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Earlier career

• Associate Delivery Manager, GDS
• Product Manager, Hertfordshire County Council (built hertfordshire.gov.uk)
• Senior Business Improvement Officer, Hertfordshire County Council
• Product Development Manager, Sheffield Futures
• Website Manager, Woodthorpe Development Trust
• Lecturer, University of Salford

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Skills

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Professional development

• Certified Scrum Master
• Trained facilitator (Circle Indigo Ltd)
• IPMA Level D
• Prince2, MSP, Management of Risk – practitioner

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Education

MSc Design Management, University of Salford
BSc Computer and Video Game Development, University of Salford