Independent Member Safety Committee

The role

The role of the Independent member is to provide the Safety Committee and the Movement with knowledge and experience to make key decisions. 

Main responsibilities

The remit of the Committee is to support the Board of Trustees to fulfil its responsibilities in relation to Safety by: 

• Providing vision and direction for consideration and endorsement by the Board (as required) by identifying and contributing to the development of safety policies, procedures and guidance; 
• Ensuring that youth members, adult volunteers, parents and staff are engaged in contribution to the development of safety policies; 
• Developing and overseeing a performance framework to ensure that safety policies, procedures and practice are monitored to provide assurance to the Board (relating to members, staff and service users) and use this management information to inform and drive improvements; monitoring the local and national implementation of safety policies and procedures to ensure practice is effective and consistently applied;
• Ensuring that appropriate connections are made with other areas of the Association’s work that may have an impact on safety (for example Adult Training by using incident data to highlight areas of success or concern);
• Ensuring that members receive appropriate support and communication to aid understanding of their responsibilities to enable Safe Scouting;
• Leading the process for Fatal Accident and/or Near Miss inquiries from commissioning through to completion;
• Reviewing and overseeing actions from inquiry reports (this should be in conjunction with the respective staff functions, particularly where there is specific policy, procedure and/or practice changes that need to be recommended for considered by the Strategy and Delivery Committee and/or Board (as required);
• Identifying possible areas of development for Association’s safety activities, taking into account relevant national agendas and learning from reviews, whether this be external or internal to the Association

The Person

Candidates should have: 

• Experience of high hazard environments
• Experience of working in safety as a safety practitioner or holds a safety qualification
• Expertise welcomed in mental health/wellbeing, human factors or occupational health 
• Experience of working or volunteering with charitable or youth organisations 
• Ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of audiences including senior staff, volunteers, other Committee members, and others 
• Ability to effectively contribute in meetings 
• Ability to quickly assimilate a broad knowledge of Scouting's purpose, policies, activities and structures

Past or present membership of The Scout Association would be an advantage but is not an essential requirement. 

Appointment process

If you are interested in the position and would like to apply, please send your CV and supporting statement outlining your suitability for the role, to governance@scouts.org.uk

The closing date for applications is: 30 April 2024

For more information 

If you would like to discuss the role in more detail, please contact the Governance Team at governance@scouts.org.uk.