About Us

Our aim is to find routes out of homelessness and into independent living for the people we support every day. Alongside our services, we have two social enterprises, that provide vital income for our charity as well as volunteering and training opportunities for people using our services and the wider community.

About The Job

The Director of HR and Corporate Services is at the heart of the business. Taking a lead on the HR, Risk, Legal and Compliance functions, this role is responsible for all internal operations, and also supports central functions.

A strong part of our culture is local accountability and as such this role will enable others to make decisions, devolving appropriate responsibilities on areas such as HR, procurement, contract management and facilities to other parts of the organisation while taking a strategic overview.

This is a new role where the postholder will have scope to review and update responsibilities, in conjunction with the CEO, to ensure the function works across the organisation.

The Director of HR and Corporate Services shares key leadership behaviours and accountabilities with the rest of the Leadership Team, while focusing on specific areas responsibility.

This role requires a PVG check.

Main Areas of Responsibility

• Governance: Ensure the correct governance arrangements, practices and systems are in place; are followed; and reviewed.
• Improvement projects: Take the lead on improvement projects across the organisation, involving appropriate people and teams.
• Business continuity: Ensure planning for business continuity is documented, prepared for and regularly reviewed.
• Health and Safety: Chair the health and safety committee and oversee implementation of policies and appropriate reporting
• Data Protection: Ensure our information management systems and retention schedules are up to date and information is secure, this includes IT security and support.
• People development: lead on Impactful People, our people development and feedback programme.
• Contractor management: direct and support external contractors on marketing, fundraising, people development and other projects.
• Oversee the work of the Directorate of Corporate Services team providing strategic decision making, professional guidance and support.
• Line management of 4 X Direct reports: Executive Assistant; Project Co-ordinator; HR & Payroll Coordinator; Volunteer & Community Fundraising Officer

Employee Benefits

• 35 days holiday including public holidays.
• Pension with People’s Pension (employees 3%; employers 5%).
• Casual dress code.
• On-site parking.
• Access to Organisational Development Programme.
• Access to advice and support through our Employee Assistance Programme.
• 15% staff discount plus free delivery for items purchased in Edinburgh Furniture Initiative.
• 20% staff discount at Four Square Park Cafe *excluding alcohol.
• Access to exclusive deals and discounts through our HR platform.
• Access to a staff support fund to help with unexpected one-off costs.
• Involvement in Four Square’s strategy planning.

Required Qualifications and Skills

We are looking for a candidate who can hit the ground running in this role and therefore we require candidates to have:

• Experience of working at a senior level within an organisation;
• Knowledge and understanding of the charity sector, preferably as an employee or a trustee
• Significant experienced of people management;
• Preferably qualified to CIPD Level 7 (or equivalent experience/qualification);
• Demonstrable knowledge of the legal and regulatory landscape of all aspects of corporate services to ensure understanding and compliance, including: HR; data protection; health and safety; and charity governance;
• Excellent project management and planning skills and be able to translate strategies into operational plans;
• Experience in coaching and developing members of a new team is desirable.
• Ability to think strategically and creatively while demonstrating good judgement when analysing and responding to complex issues.
• Works well under own initiative; is an effective member of a leadership team; and a skilled collaborator across an organisation.
• Highly organised with strong attention to detail.
• Confident and effective communicator with the ability to present information to a variety of different audiences.
• Confident with a variety of IT packages including Microsoft. Ability to create reports and analyse data to spot trends and act on them.

Reports to: CEO.

Do you believe in the power of data to improve people’s lives and know that working with the public is vital to our mission? Research Data Scotland needs you!

We have an exciting opportunity to work in a multifaceted Business Management role to support the delivery of exemplary governance and operational excellence. This role works with stakeholders at every level in our organisation and as such we are looking to appoint a highly motivated and conscientious individual.

About us

Research Data Scotland (RDS) is a charity set up by the Scottish public sector and leading universities. We help researchers find and make use of data that can improve the lives of people in Scotland. Working in partnership, we do this by widening the range of data available, creating new data assets and providing a single point of contact for safe, secure and effective access to public data in a trustworthy manner.

Data is often locked away in lots of individual systems, across many different organisations, and isn’t in a format that makes access or integration easy. We can help researchers to unlock the potential of this data by giving them information and advice that speeds up and simplifies their work.

RDS aims to provide a step change in the service to researchers, whilst maintaining the high standards of information governance and data security already in place. We aim to work as openly as possible, maintaining standards in transparency and ethics. Our focus is on providing a streamlined service for researchers, as well as extending the range of data available through the service, particularly in the areas of Covid-19, NHS imaging, geospatial data, children and justice services.

Our partners include: Scottish Government, Public Health Scotland, National Records of Scotland (NRS), and the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. We work closely with the national and regional safe havens. And we are in contact with other organisations in Scotland and across the UK in the data research sector, including public sector, research and commercial bodies.

About the job

The Business Manager will work closely with the Chair, CEO and Operations Director to manage, coordinate and schedule the regular cycle of our governance and business activities. This will include coordinating board meetings as well as maintaining our internal registers and ensuring our reporting mechanisms are top-notch! This post will be highly varied and vital to the successful delivery of our Business and Delivery plans.

There is a strong focus on developmental projects, operational risk, records management, governance, improving our performance and delivering our day-to-day charity operations. You’ll be an important member of our Operations Team, sharing your expertise with colleagues and board members, as well as independently leading on activities.

Reports to Operations Director

About you

You are a self-starter, with experience of working with stakeholders at every level. You’ll understand the importance of engaging well with board members, senior leaders and your colleagues to get their input into your work and support great governance. You are highly organised and thrive on managing multiple projects with different deadlines. You are keen to deliver, with an eye for detail and the pragmatism to understand our context and environment.

Life at RDS

We are a small friendly and highly engaged team of people. We promote continuous learning and work hard to build an inclusive and supportive workplace culture. We live our values of; integrity, transparency, courage, collaboration and humility.

Our people typically work a 35-hour week, with hybrid working on offer from day one. You can choose to work flexibly from home or use one of our desks in the Bayes Centre in central Edinburgh. The whole RDS team meets one day per month in-person in Edinburgh or at an off-site away day in the Central Belt. Individual teams organise their own in-person days to collaborate, develop and socialise together.

We offer 33 days’ annual leave (including public holidays) and have no set closure days. We have a generous pension and enhanced pay for parental/adoption leave. This list of benefits is being added to as the organisation develops, and you can help shape it as part of the team. Our Culture Group helps us seek feedback from colleagues across the organisation to make RDS an even better place to work.

This is an exciting opportunity to shape and influence the development of a new public body: the Scottish Food Commission. It is expected that the Commission will be formally established by mid-2025.

The Scottish Food Commission is a new non-departmental public body that is to be established to provide an oversight role of provisions made in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022.

As the first chair of the Scottish Food Commission, this appointment will play a crucial role in shaping the future and strategic direction of this new public body.

You will be actively involved in the recruitment of the chief executive, the first member of staff to the Scottish Food Commission, and in appointing the other members of the board.

You will work closely with the sponsor team and the chief executive, once in place, to enable the new public body to take on its statutory functions and full budgetary control once it is established.

Once the body is fully established you will be key in ensuring the Commission effectively fulfils its oversight role and provides constructive challenge, that is evidence based, to Scottish Ministers and relevant authorities in relation to their Good Food Nation Plans.

This is a high publicity role that will attract great interest from key stakeholders interested in the Scottish food system.

Remuneration and time commitment

The chair role is paid at a gross daily rate of £211 per day (7.5 hours).This role is non-pensionable. This means that there is no pension contribution paid.

We expect that the time commitment will change over the life of the body. While the body is being established and during the first months of operation more engagement will be needed – i.e. up to 80 days/year. During the establishment phase there may also be phases of increased activity.

It is likely that once the body is established the chair’s time commitment will decrease to approximately 50 days/year.

The chair’s time commitment will be reviewed on a regular basis.

Skills/Experience Required

Scottish Ministers welcome applications from people from a wide range of backgrounds who have the following

skills/knowledge/experience:

All of the following priority criteria:

• Experience of setting up a new organisation, and setting the direction for that organisation
• Experience of navigating a complex policymaking landscape, including communicating with a range of stakeholders
• Leadership and Management

All of the following essential criteria:

• Analysis and Decision-making
• Seeing the bigger picture
• Communication, influence and constructive challenge
• Understanding of the complexity of the food system

At Key and Community Lifestyles, we provide person-centred support to over 2,000 disabled people, across 17 Scottish local authorities, to enable them to lead full, active lives in their own homes and communities.

We are recruiting a new Operational Manager to join our small senior team with responsibility for our services across Scotland. This role requires an exceptional leader who has a passion for developing high quality, outcome focused, personalised support to disabled people of all ages. You will work alongside local Area Managers, supporting them to develop and deliver great services for people we support. You will also lead on strengthening relationships with commissioners and partners in those areas with a focus on building our reputation for creative, flexible, and reliable support.

You will have substantial experience of management at a senior level in social services, with a proven track record in supporting continual improvement, innovation, and creative service design. Resilience, compassion, and kindness will be hallmarks of your approach, along with a strong focus on people and outcomes.