Chief Executive Officer

Voluntary Arts Network (VAN)

29 Jun 2005

Debbie Brooks

debbie@voluntaryarts.org

029 2039 5395

We are looking for a new chief executive because Roger Fox, after more than ten years developing and growing VAN, has decided to retire.

VAN's prime job in a nutshell is to promote practical participation in the arts and crafts in the UK, Ireland and also in Europe; and the CEO's job is to devote their energies to ensuring this happens in the best way possible. The following provides you with an overview of VAN, its work, and your job (should you be the successful candidate appointed).

VAN is currently structured into five departments operating under the one organisation. Voluntary Arts England, Voluntary Arts Ireland, Voluntary Arts Scotland, and Voluntary Arts Wales make up four of the departments, each of them operating in their own geographic territories. The fifth, VAN core services, comprises the chief executive's advocacy and lobbying activities; overarching information provision, including services to each of the nations; and the finance, legislative and personnel operation for all five departments.

Each national department is at a different stage of development, for historical and funding reasons. VA Wales, for example, has six staff and a turnover for 2005-06 of some £190k; VA Scotland has only 1.2 x full-time equivalent staff and a turnover of £63k. Overall, the organisation currently has eight full time and nine part time staff and a total turnover for 05-06 of over £600k.

Part of your job, therefore, is to manage the senior staff (one in each nation, one in the core department, plus a finance and admin officer) to ensure they deliver on agreed operational financial and strategic targets within their own departments; and to ensure the overall finance, legislative and personnel functions of the organisation.

VAN has always seen the importance, for cultural and political reasons, of having an appropriate nationally focused structure. It believes in subsidiarity, but recognises that devolution is a process not an event and one that depends on practicalities as well as politics.

Currently, each of the five VAN departments has its own elected committee (which report directly to the VAN board) overseeing its operations. These committees each have a different degree of autonomy, but none is independent of VAN as a whole. We have now reached the point in the process where we need to consider whether this structure is appropriate for the next stage of VAN's development. Issues include the form of governance, and how this can be made most appropriate for departments at different stages of their life; the type of management structure, and how this can support smaller departments while still allowing bigger departments to grow; the role of the core services department; how to ensure that VAN as a whole continues to deliver on its primary job of promoting the voluntary arts and crafts. A task-and-finish committee of the board is already starting to consider some of these issues.

An important part of your job, therefore, is to assist the board with this review, and to use your skills and knowledge, research and consultation to recommend structures and operations suitable for the next stage of VAN's development. It is possible (though we're ruling nothing in or out) that one result of this work over the next period of time is that the role of chief executive will change. For this reason, we are offering this post on a two-year fixed term contract, in the first instance.

VAN does its day to day work mainly through high-quality web and print-based information services, including a series of highly-regarded briefing sheets; through lobbying and advocacy activities within the voluntary and community sectors, arts funding systems, the voluntary cultural sector, a wide range of government departments and public bodies in each of the five nations of the UK and Ireland and supra-nationally, and a range of bodies in Europe; and through various practical programmes which can range from research on the voluntary arts in Somerset, though the development of an accreditation in working in the cultural sector, and associated learning materials; to a large-scale long-term programme of development officers working across Wales to support the work of voluntary and community arts organisations in that nation. And, of course, much more. It is funded to do this work through a mix of grants from national arts councils, European Union, trusts and foundations, some direct government aid, some earned income, and elsewhere.

Part of your job, therefore, is to ensure the appropriate mix of work is delivered to ensure VAN's prime job is carried out; and that sufficient funding is raised to keep the operation afloat. Some of this - in particular the lobbying and advocacy (especially that which concerns more than one nation) and the overall the budgeting and monitoring - you will do directly; the rest you will oversee staff to carry out.

You can operate from anywhere within the UK / ROI provided you are able to travel easily to each of the five VAN departments (Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Welshpool).

Your starting salary will be £40,000 together with leave and sick pay provisions.

Completed application forms to be returned to Kathryn Deane, (Chair) by 12 noon on Wednesday 29 June at the latest. We are hoping to hold interviews on Friday 8 July.

We will not discriminate in shortlisting or interviewing on the grounds of your race, colour, ethnic or national origins, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or religious beliefs. To help us monitor our performance we ask you to fill in a confidential monitoring form which will not be seen by the panel involved in the recruitment process. The application procedure asks you to tell us only about those things that will help us decide whether you have the skills and abilities for the job.