Trustee with Commissioning Experience

About Ambient

Ambient Support is a registered UK charity with nearly 30 years’ experience in providing care and support services for older people, people with a mental health need and people with a learning disability. 

Our aim is to ensure we deliver the highest quality of service for our beneficiaries, be a provider of choice to our sector partners and deliver services that are good value for those who purchase or commission our services.

What will you be doing?

A Trustee with commissioning experience would bring a specific set of skills and knowledge that could greatly benefit our organisation. For instance, they will bring their insights into the process of commissioning services, market shaping and procurement, which involve identifying the needs of the community, defining service requirements and selecting appropriate providers. This knowledge could help our charity in aligning its programmes and initiatives with local needs and priorities.

This role can be done mainly at home or mainly from the office.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for someone willing to bring energy, enthusiasm and commitment to the role, and who will broaden the diversity of thinking on the Board. The Trustee will have the following:

• Commissioning background, ideally with local authority experience
• Experience and understanding of social care, ideally in the third or public sector
• Willingness and ability to understand and accept their responsibilities and liabilities as Trustees and to act in the best interests of the organisation
• Ability to think creatively and strategically, exercise good, independent judgement and work effectively as a board member
• Effective communication skills and willingness to participate actively in discussion
• A strong personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
• Enthusiasm for our vision and mission
• Willingness to lead according to our values
• Commitment to Nolan’s seven principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership

We welcome applications from anyone regardless of their age, experience, disability, ethnicity, heritage, sexuality, gender and socio-economic background.

You do not need previous Charity board governance experience – we will provide a full induction and training. Ambient Support is deeply committed to inclusive working practices, so during the application process we commit to:

• Paying for childcare whilst you’re at interviews where these take place in person
• Paying for your travel costs to the office and back for interviews
• Making any reasonable adjustments - for example ensuring we have BSL interpreters organised in advance if you’d like them
• Providing this document in a Word document format readily available to download
• Offering a guaranteed first stage interview for disabled candidates who meet the minimum requirements for the role

What difference will you make?

Our staff are amazing people – they are committed, caring and aspirational for the people we support and in turn we want to give our staff the support and development they deserve. We have recently gained Great Places to Work accreditation and we have ambitious plans to continue our journey to ensure that Ambient is a welcoming and inclusive workplace. It is an exciting time to join us and your skills and commitment will be fully utilised.

Commitment:

Estimate of time needed: up to five hours per month.

Attending quarterly Board meetings and Subcommittee meetings. Please see candidate pack for more details.

How to apply:

TrusteeWorks team are supporting Ambient with their recruitment.

Please submit your CV, LinkedIn profile or similar along with a covering letter stating why you would like to apply to become a Trustee and how your skills, abilities and experience would add value to the Board.

Please note that the covering letter is an important part of your application and will be a key part of the shortlisting process. If you would like to have an informal chat please contact the TrusteeWorks team to arrange it.

Deadline: 2^nd October 2023