Community Transport Development Officer (full time)
Location : Remote or DTAS Edinburgh Office
Responsible to: DTAS Development & Communications Officer
Salary: £29,414 - £32,038 + pension (currently 11.5% employer contribution)
Hours: 35 hours per week (excluding meal breaks). No overtime paid, but time off
in lieu may be taken as appropriate.
Leave entitlement: 25 days p/a, plus 10 public holidays
Period of Employment: Fixed term, 1 year post (with 3 months probationary period).
Potential for a further 1 year extension subject to funding.
Closing Date: Monday 19th October 2020, 5pm
Interviews: Interviews will be held on week commencing 14thNovember 2020
Job Description
Purpose of role
The purpose of this new post is to create a sustainable umbrella model that will support individual community transport schemes. This could help with costs like insurance, training and maintenance - but would allow the individual communities to ensure that they were introducing a scheme that worked to their community’s needs.
As a result of this pilot project, we will find a sustainable, replicable model that will help other communities to deliver successful schemes.
Context
This post is the result of a partnership between COMO UK, Community Transport Association (Scotland), Energy Savings Trust and Development Trusts Association Scotland (DTAS).
DTAS will employ a full-time a Community Transport Development Officer on a 2 year basis (initially 1 year) to support DTAS members who are delivering or looking to deliver community transport schemes in their areas.
We will identify 5 geographically dispersed areas as a pilot study and work with them to plan, implement and deliver successful, sustainable community transport schemes in their locality. Entrenched rural transport challenges like a lack of public transport and rising fuel costs that are well evidenced, coupled with the fact that independent community car club schemes are expensive to design and deliver.
Role & Responsibilities
The main responsibilities of this role will be to:
• identify a small number of community transport schemes in different parts of Scotland with the potential for development and implementation on a local level.
• build effective multi-agency partnerships to support the development and delivery of these schemes;
• work closely with Development Trusts to develop community transport schemes, provide general advice and support on all aspects of project development and signpost to specialist advice and support where required;
• assist Development Trust to identify and secure funding for initiative and explore innovative ways of resource developments;
• Research and implement shared delivery infrastructure and bulk insurance purchase;
• develop a suite of case studies and other learning materials to help other community groups to apply the approaches taken by the pilot schemes with similar characteristics elsewhere;
• report on the lessons learned and provide recommendations to the project steering group about changes to policy and practice that would make it easier for other groups to undertake similar projects elsewhere; and
• use the lessons learned from the pilot schemes to work with stakeholders to develop an innovative approach for scaling-up community led transport schemes across Scotland.
• this list is not exhaustive and the tasks may differ on occasion when required.
To download a copy of the full job description and person specifiction, please click here.
To apply for the position please send a current CV along with a statement detailing reasons for applying and specific experience to match criteria in Role & Responsibilities/Person Specification to: aileen@dtascot.org.uk
DTAS takes the collection and use of your data seriously, please see link to the DTAS Recruitment Privacy Statement
DTA Scotland is committed to a policy of equality & diversity.
Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) No: SC034231
This position is funded by: Paths for All
Job Description Community Transport draft 080920.docx
It started with a few pontoons. The yachties came and filled them. More pontoons were added and more yachties came. The derelict hotel near to the harbour was bought by a local businessman who invested with other locals, using local trades, creating 30 jobs. A path was built from the village where the ferry came in to three local distilleries so foot and cyclists could visit more safely and visitor numbers soared. The bank closed down and the community bought the building to house the harbour master and the community development officer. A chef put a new restaurant in an old café now open all year as there were more locals too. The petrol station was bought out by the community to save on a 20-mile round trip and provided four more jobs. The ground next to the petrol station was turned into camper-van facilities. Both now provide the community with trading income for their community needs.
This is South Islay Development, one of nearly 300 active organisations which are members of Development Trusts Association Scotland (DTAS), all of which have, with small, local actions, made huge impacts in and on their areas.
The increasing ownership of public buildings and land, much of which has not been used for decades, has created opportunities for real innovation by communities taking over unloved buildings and waste ground and turning them into businesses or setting up projects that have multi-layered benefits to their community. Development trusts all over Scotland from Newcastleton to Unst run projects that encourage healthy eating, provide training for unskilled and marginalised adults in very challenged areas. They create microbusiness-incubator spaces, provide nurseries, run community transport buses, electric car clubs, recycling centres and cafes. They own timber forests, multi-million-pound hydro-schemes, shops and pubs. Community enterprise both urban and rural isn’t a replacement for the private sector but it will often operate where the private sector chooses not to and be the catalyst for new opportunities in the places they are.
All these projects and businesses are overseen by an army of volunteer board members who have to be confident enough in themselves and their community to take on these plans. The DTAS survey of member organisations in 2019 registered 2,348 volunteer board members with a combined turnover of £57.9 million a year. All this is underpinned by more than £165 million of assets and land through which they regenerate their communities. The responsibility on the shoulders of our community board members is heavy and daunting. Having volunteers responsible for steering development trusts is crucial and building their skills and confidence to take over the responsibility for a building or land in their community is the starting point for a community’s pathway to asset ownership.
DTAS delivers two programmes for the Scottish Government to support communities on their journey, two of which are dedicated to helping communities help themselves with buying buildings and land and financing projects. They are Community Ownership Support Service (COSS) and Community Shares Scotland (CSS). We also have a dedicated team of staff to support those who are already members, who have acquired their land and assets, as that is only the starting point for regeneration.
Successful outcomes can also be linked to community organisations that have at least one paid member of staff. These development officers are totally dedicated to their places and the cost of these staff, whether initially from public sources or later from community trading income, allows communities the capacity to not just recognise the ‘what’ needs to be done; but to provide the ‘how’.
Community-powered regeneration is a powerful way of addressing local needs with local solutions. Not all communities will start with pontoons but all communities need confidence and guidance to take over assets and land which no one else wants and transform their places.
Let’s support them.
On the18th of March, the Scottish Government announced an investment of £350 million to support local communities and households in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. £40 million of this support was to be channelled through a new Supporting Communities Fund, introduced specifically to support the rapidly growing and inspiring community efforts at a local level to respond to Coronavirus.
DTAS is a key delivery partner of this fund and over the last three weeks, has processed applications from over 60 members involving grants totalling almost £2.5 million! Across the whole of Scotland 128 DTAS members have been awarded grants totalling £4,216,879 to support community responses to the impact of the Coronavirus.
Projects supported cover a wide range of activity delivered by community anchor organisations1, ranging from the supply of essentials like food and prescriptions, to wellbeing check-ins and benefits advice – for the most part, co-ordinated and delivered by volunteers.
Whilst it is not surprising that DTAS members are at the heart of this activity, it is heartening to see just how many are stepping up to help support their communities, particularly when you consider the financial challenges that the pandemic and resulting lockdown has created for development trusts.
The circumstances surrounding all of this activity are far from ideal, but the response from organisations like development trusts and other community anchor organisations, hammers home the fact that it is the people in communities who are the biggest assets and therefore the best placed to respond to and meet local need.
DTAS is under no illusion that there are hard times ahead when it comes to adapting to the ‘new normal’ once the current restrictions ease and the full financial implications of Coronavirus are understood. We want to reassure members that we are all in this together and we will do all that we can to continue to support you to navigate your way through these uncertain times.
Commenting on the support received by Cranhill Development Trust, Chief Executive Marie Ward said:
“Because of our presence in Cranhill, we were aware very early on that there would be lots of people in our local community that would really struggle to make ends meet as a result Coronavirus and the lockdown restrictions imposed.
“Almost immediately we were supporting over 160 households locally with food and basic supplies every week. This has since risen to over 200 households and we simply could not have done this without the support from the Scottish Government’s Supporting Communities Fund.
Thanks to this support we have been able to ensure that families are able to provide children with a hot and nutritious meal every day, as well as supporting those that find themselves unemployed and in a long queue to access Universal Credit with advice, signposting and emergency gas and electricity top ups.”
1 A community anchor organisation will be a community body who is able to, and has the capacity to, act as a local contact in their community. They will be well established in the community with a good understanding of their community the challenges arising from the current Covid-19 emergency, or the ability to readily gather this information and able to connect and co-ordinate activity in their area with other local groups and with public sector responses.
