Core purpose

Our Skills for Life strategy is committed to ensuring that Scouts is reaching more underrepresented communities and recruiting and retaining more volunteers and young people from diverse backgrounds. At its best, Scouts creates a strong sense of belonging and is welcoming to all. We want to remove barriers to participation and continue our journey to reflect the communities we serve, so more young people can join Scouting and gain skills for life.

This is an incredibly exciting time to join the team and lead our EDI strategy. With a new EDI team in place and a Programme of Work in planning, we need an individual who can move brilliantly between strategy and action, able to build a new team culture and become a trusted adviser within the organisation. You will thrive in and have experience of a complex stakeholder environment and have the experience to act as an EDI expert for staff and volunteers across Scouts. You will be supported by and work closely with the Executive Director of Strategy and Transformation, and key volunteers including the Race Equity Adviser and the UK Commissioner for Inclusion. Working alongside our national, regional and local volunteer teams, as well a Race Equity Project Board of external experts, this role will ensure we continue to keep pace and deliver our ambition to ensure that Scouts is a consistently inclusive movement, welcoming to all.  It will also offer expertise, guidance and support on a wide range of diversity and inclusion areas, enabling us to better support our staff and members and ensure we comply with legislation and industry good practice.

Key accountabilities

Working with staff and volunteer teams you will:

· Contribute to the strategic plans of the organisation from an EDI perspective, including the development of our new 2025 Strategy and supporting plans and ensuring these two elements are successfully linked

· Lead on the implementation of the current EDI Strategy and ensure that it is appropriately reviewed and updated

· Translate the EDI strategy into a tangible and detailed programme of work which delivers on its key objectives and embeds a positive Equity, Diversity and Inclusion culture throughout the organisation

· Develop key performance indicators and measures of success with which to monitor progress and performance with the EDI Strategy and other EDI plans to demonstrate impact

· Contribute at both strategic and operational levels to the organisation’s change and improvement plans, ensuring EDI considerations are fully integrated embedded

· Continue to deliver the action plan recommended by the independently-led race equity review conducted in 2021

· Embed and support the new EDI team, building a strong and responsive team culture to deliver these outcomes, ensuring a high level of performance from all members with high levels of integration across both staff and senior volunteer teams at Scouts

· Support our volunteer leaders in identifying and delivering ways to enhance inclusion and diversity within the volunteer network

· Provide information, resources and practical support to our young people, adult volunteers and staff

· Provide EDI expertise, capacity and challenge to support our national boards as they undertake the implementation of our 2018-2025 strategy

· Advise and support the People & Culture function to ensure that Scouts is a great employer which embraces diversity and is fully inclusive

· Support colleagues and particularly the Communications and People teams to develop excellent communications around a range of EDI matters, encouraging celebration of what we are doing well, challenge in areas where we should improve and meaningful engagement by staff, volunteers and other stakeholders

· Ensure we are compliant with current and emerging legislation

· Provide expert support to help us deal with complex issues relating to EDI

· Any other reasonable accountabilities in line with the level of responsibility of the role

The person

We are looking for

An inspiring, emotionally intelligent and calm senior leader who has in-depth knowledge of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, experience of successfully implementing EDI strategies within organisations and is capable of collaborating and co-creating with a range of stakeholders to drive and manage change across a large, values-based organisation.

Skills and Abilities

· An effective change agent who is able to achieve change with and through others

· Act as subject matter expert on EDI, engaging with colleagues to support learning, growth, and a mindset shift.

· Ability to manage a new EDI team by collaboratively building a team culture while setting clear objectives and expectations

· Exceptional interpersonal and influencing skills, ideally in a matrix management environment, inspiring others to engage and work collaboratively.

· Ability to work flexibly and at pace and to innovate and react to emerging thinking

· Ability to gain credibility with and influence direction of senior staff and volunteer stakeholders

· Ability to assess complex problems and come up with practical and workable solutions

· Ability to co-create and implement effective plans to achieve agreed organisational objectives and to make clear, informed and timely decisions

· Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to enable successful influencing, listening and negotiating with others

· Excellent planning and organisational skills with the ability to manage and deliver a diverse workload

· Ability to manage resources (human and financial) in the most effective way to deliver on agreed organisational objectives

Knowledge and Experience

· Experience of being a strategic leader in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for a large organisation of comparable complexity

· Wide ranging experience, knowledge and understanding of current Equity, Diversity & Inclusion practices and strategies

· Experience of managing and building new teams and maximising diverse skills

· Experience of delivering tangible diversity and inclusion outcomes, at scale, in large organisations

· A current knowledge of diversity and inclusivity legislation and best practice as well as innovative and emerging EDI initiatives

· Experience of working with volunteers or a volunteering organisation at scale, ideally within a federated structure

· Knowledge of appropriate evaluation mechanisms and systems for monitoring progress within the sphere of organisational EDI

· Awareness and understanding of the need for accessibility and inclusivity in all communications, both internal and external in order to develop excellent levels of engagement with the EDI agenda

Values and Personal Qualities

· A commitment to the values of the Scouts

· A self-aware, positive and approachable leader

· Able to focus and communicate clear priorities to support the team to do the same

· An effective leader who is assertive, energetic, determined, robust and sufficiently resilient to cope with the demands of the role

· An excellent role model who promotes high standards of integrity, and commands trust and confidence from others

· Open, confident and collegiate with the ability and willingness to challenge constructively, and to receive challenge, and to work effectively at senior levels internally and externally