Can you help us achieve our vision: ‘a Scotland where all parents and families are valued and supported to give children the best possible start in life’?

This an exciting opportunity to lead a small yet powerful charity dedicated to influencing policy and practice for parents, children, and families.

Parenting across Scotland (PAS) is offering an exciting opportunity for someone with senior leadership skills and vision to lead the organisation and to put our new strategy into action.

You will work alongside a supportive board to lead and to motivate PAS to realise its vision: a Scotland where all parents and families are valued and supported to give children the best possible start in life.

PAS is an important influencer in supporting and improving the lives of children and families. A small organisation, our reach is considerable because of our members and partnerships with other organisations in the third and public sectors that are working with and for parents. Since forming in 2004, we have had considerable success in promoting the voices of parents and caregivers in order to shape national policy.

This appointment comes at a time when the PAS board has been working on refreshing its strategy and needs a committed and experienced chief executive to finalise the key priorities and to lead the strategy.

This post will give you the chance to be a visible leader, to make your mark and to put your own stamp on an organisation which is held in high regard across the sector. You will have the scope to develop relationships with member organisations, the parenting sector, academia and statutory sector stakeholders. You will be able to build your own network to inform and support the work. You’ll have a unique opportunity to strengthen and apply your skills in strategic thinking and in generating income to enable PAS to flourish.

You should already be a senior leader, although not necessarily a chief executive. You should know about the parenting/children/families sector; how to promote the concerns of parents; and how to engage with, critique and contribute to policy development. You need to have the necessary skills and attributes to influence and persuade with authenticity, diplomacy, and commitment. You need to be a ‘horizon scanner’, able to navigate the many and complex issues facing both the sector itself and parenting policy and practice. You should have demonstrable experience in building strong partnerships and be able to generate grant and charitable income.

You will need to use your skills to manage PAS and its interests now and as the organisation develops. As well as having experience and knowledge of charitable governance, strategy, financial management and people management, you should be adept at engaging at various levels and with different interests such as those of local and national government, colleagues, partners, and parents/families.

This exciting position has arisen as one of our Senior Management Team is going on maternity leave in the summer. We’re not just looking for a caretaker, but someone who wants to join us and deliver our new 2030 strategy with passion, fun and challenge.

Focussing on leading the team to deliver our 2030 strategy (or as we call it the BIG PLAN), the role is a twelve-month minimum fixed-term contract to cover maternity leave - but genuinely has the autonomy, budget and magic to make things happen.

The role will take the strategic priorities that relate to the role and deliver the key actions for that year which are reported to the Trustee board via the annual LITTLE PLAN. The role also has the responsibility of taking data, insight and feedback and using that to enhance delivery of the BIG PLAN priorities, or to make changes to current operations or services.

However, and this is the exciting element, HOW the plan is delivered is up for discussion. We can’t deliver services in the same way and expect different results: Our students want choice, how and when they access our services, digital options, self-service as well as quiet spaces to connect, socialise and relax.

Like most Student Unions demand is growing, but for different services now than in 2018. We must transform our delivery.

Our representation and democracy have elements that can be traced back 900 years with Elections. But how can we make these more relevant? How do we increase engagement with the Union? Do our new students know why we exist and how we can help?

We can’t rely on ‘what we used to do’ we must have actionable insight that makes a tangible difference to the student experience.

There is also the wider Senior Management team responsibility – we’re a small team so sometimes its sleeves rolled up for a colleague’s priority that will always benefit a student – if it doesn’t, we question why not?

This Job description doesn’t have 36 bullet points, but it does have 36+ people in the Union wanting you to make a difference by challenging the norm.

Full job description attached below