Access Projects Officer

Closing date: 10:00 on Monday 25 March 2024
Interview date: Monday 08 April 2024
Start date: Monday 06 May 2024
Salary: £27,000 full time equivalent

Background

The idea at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is simple: anyone with a desire to perform and a venue willing to host them is welcome. No individual or committee determines who can or cannot perform at the Fringe.
It all began in 1947 with eight companies – six of them from Scotland – taking a risk, turning up uninvited and performing on the ‘fringe’ of the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival. Over 75 years later, the Fringe has grown to become one of the greatest platforms for creative freedom in the world, second only to the Olympics in terms of global ticketed events. In 2023, 3,553 shows took place in 288 venues across Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society was founded by artists to nurture and uphold the Fringe's values of inclusivity, experimentation and imagination. We exist to support, advise and encourage everyone who wants to participate in the Fringe, provide information and assistance to audiences, and celebrate the Fringe and what it stands for all over the world.

CEAL team

This role is part of the Community Engagement, Access and Learning (CEAL) team. The CEAL team works to address the gap between the ambition of the Fringe to be an inclusive and accessible festival for all and the reality of the multiple barriers that prevent participation. We do this through a mixture of long-term strategic work, and shorter-term project work, in partnership with venues, artists and experts in the field. Our work addresses the specific barriers that make the festival inaccessible to many people. This role is managed by the CEAL Manager.

The Access Projects Officer will promote, develop and deliver work which aims to remove barriers to the Fringe for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people and will contribute to making the Fringe an inclusive and accessible festival. You will work closely with colleagues from across the organisation, as well as with external partners, providing advice on a range of projects and programmes, as well as developing, delivering and evaluating your own projects. This role requires someone with a high level of specialised knowledge on access requirements and solutions in the performing arts and the ability to communicate this in an engaging manner to a range of people.

Role and responsibilities

You will perform a wide range of duties, including but not limited to the following:

• Developing, delivering, and evaluating projects to make the Fringe more accessible and inclusive for D/deaf, disabled people and neurodivergent people. This includes looking after existing projects and developing new projects.
• Working closely with the Registration team to provide advice to artists developing enhanced performances.
• Working closely with the Artist Development team to provide advice to D/deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent artists planning to bring work to the Fringe.
• Supporting Fringe venues to improve access provision and work towards providing consistent experience for Fringe audiences and artists.
• Providing support and advice about access for D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people to both internal and external stakeholders.
• Developing new ways to connect Fringe companies and venues with access providers, eg theatre captioners, BSL interpreters and audio describers.
• Working with the Marketing team to ensure that all Fringe access services, and enhanced performances are effectively marketed.
• Assisting the Development team with funding applications for access work.
• Acting as the first point of contact for enquiries including managing inboxes and maintaining contact lists, answering and coordinating responses to customer and artist questions, comments and complaints.
• Collaborating with the Street Events team to ensure the Fringe street events are as inclusive as possible.
• Working with colleagues across the organisation to ensure that Society events are accessible.
• Managing allocated project budgets.
• Managing relationships with key stakeholders.
• Assisting the CEAL Manager to recruit and manage freelance workers where appropriate.

Person specification

Essential

Proven experience of:

• providing access advice to internal and external stakeholders
• planning and delivering access provision in a performing arts setting
• building and developing positive relationships
• developing, delivering and evaluating projects
• working in partnerships.
• Knowledge of the 2010 Equalities Act.
• Knowledge of the barriers that affect participation of marginalised groups within the arts sector.
• Knowledge of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and/or live performance environment.
• Ability to work independently and on own initiative.
• Creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to engage and work effectively with a range of people.

Desirable

• Experience of developing or supporting accessible performances as a performer, producer or event manager.
• Experience of contributing to funding applications.

Salary and benefits

• Salary: £27,000 full time equivalent
• 4.5% employer pension contribution
• 34 days holiday (inclusive of six bank holidays) per annum, pro rata
• Flexible working culture
• Employee assistance programme

Hours of work

This job is completely open to flexible working and we are happy to discuss this at any stage of the application process. The minimum hours that we would offer would be 21 hours per week up to 35 hours per week. Normal working hours in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society are between 09:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday, and your hours should fit within this schedule.

Some additional evening and weekend work may be required, especially in the run up to and during the festival. There is no overtime entitlement, but the Society does maintain a TOIL policy for additional hours worked.

This post is an in-person post with some home working available in agreement with your line manager. For example, due to the nature of the role, you may be expected to attend in-person meetings, site visits and delivering events in-person. In particular, you may need to be present in the office during the Fringe in August.

We use positive action under section 159 of the Equality Act in relation to disability or race. This means that if we have two candidates of equal merit in our process, we will seek to take forward the D/deaf, disabled, Black, Asian or ethnically diverse candidate in order to diversify our staff team.

Apply now

The Fringe have identified six pillars of commitment around the sustainable delivery of their work, are active members of the Festivals Edinburgh Sustainability Working group and include climate action as one of the headline targets in the Fringe development goals. As part of the commitments of this work, all Fringe staff members are expected to assist with the Fringe Society’s environmental goals and consider these in all elements of your work.

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all sectors of the community. We are also proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and aim to successfully employ and retain disabled people and those with health conditions. We expect employees to support these commitments and to assist in their realisation.

If you use BSL, you can record your application in BSL and send it to us. Please contact [email protected] for the application information in BSL.

Application deadline: 25th March, 2024