Safety Committee Independent Member

The role of the Independent member is to provide the Safety Committee and the Movement with knowledge and experience for making 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:

1. 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;
2. ensuring that youth members, adult volunteers, parents and staff are engaged in contributing to the development of safety policies;
3. 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;
4. 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);
5. ensuring that members receive appropriate support and communication to aid understanding of their responsibilities to enable Safe Scouting;
6. leading the process for Fatal Accident and/or Near Miss inquiries from commissioning through to completion;
7. 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 consideration by the Strategy and Delivery Committee and/or Board (as required);
8. identifying possible areas of development for the Association’s safety activities, taking into account relevant national agendas and learning from reviews whether this be external or internal to the Association.

Skills and Experience

• Experience of application of safety principles, regulations, and best practices within a high hazard environment / industry.
• Clear understanding of legal obligations related to health and safety.
• Experience of applying health and safety regulations and standards to ensure compliance.
• Experience of identifying potential hazards, assessment, developing strategies to mitigate risk and audit and assurance in a work environment, including risk assessment methodologies and strategies.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience of leading safety initiatives and managing safety teams to influence organisational safety culture to prioritise safety.

To find out more about the role, read our information pack.

How to apply

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.

All applications should be sent to governance@scouts.org.uk with "Independent Member of the Safety Committee" in the subject heading.

The closing date for applications is 31 December 2024.

Initial interviews should take place on week commencing February 3 2025.

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