Vacancy -- Members - Academi Wales Advisory Board (Welsh essential)

Academi Wales was established in 2012 in response to the Programme for Government commitment to ‘Establish a Strategic Centre of Leadership Excellence’ for Wales. In order to ensure an ongoing connection to the public sector and public service organisations, the Academi Wales Advisory Board was also established.

The Academi Wales Advisory Board has been established to bring together relevant public servants willing to use their expertise and experience to advise on key leadership challenges and opportunities in Wales.  This advice will subsequently assist Academi Wales in facilitating the development of emerging priority leadership skills and capabilities, built on principles of collaboration and partnership.

The Academi Wales Advisory Board builds on a strong foundation of existing stakeholder partnerships, and membership of this Board ensures alignment with strategic partners to enable a joined up approach to delivering public service improvement. The membership of the Advisory Board has remained relatively unchanged since 2012, when individuals have relinquished their membership, others have been identified from the same organisation or professional group to take their place.

Advisory Board Duties:

• Support the strategic direction of Academi Wales by providing advice on sectoral priorities and enabling connection with local networks.
• Debate innovative thinking and creative ideas for potential solutions to priority leadership issues as they arise throughout the public services in Wales.
• Promote engagement of the wider Public Service in Academi Wales’s approaches and activities.
• Actively support the vision of Academi Wales, and champion the brand and products through engagement with key stakeholders and stakeholder groups.
• Be aware of evaluation and return on investment information in your role as ambassadors of effective leadership development.
• Help guide the research and development activity undertaken through Academi Wales to ensure focused horizon scanning and futures thinking.
• Uphold the principles and role model the behaviours associated with ‘One Welsh Public Service’ values and behaviours.

 

Delivery objectives:

• Support the implementation of a national approach to Leadership Development across the Welsh Public Services.
• Foster innovative solutions and approaches and engage in subgroup and task and finish group activity where appropriate.
• Engage in the national programme of development, being present at relevant events where possible and appropriate to do so. 
• Identify resources to support and deliver collaborative programmes across the sectors.

The appointment will be for 3 years with no individual serving longer than 6 years in one post, renewable for a further term on the recommendation of the Chair and subject to satisfactory performance during the initial period of membership.  The final decisions on appointments and re-appointments are made by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Public Services.  There is no automatic presumption of reappointment and there is a strong presumption that no individual should serve more than two terms or serve for more than 6 years.

The Academi Wales Advisory Board will meet once every four months at Welsh Government Offices, Cardiff. 

Members are not remunerated for their commitment to this role with travel and subsistence expenditure to be paid for by the members’ employer organisation.  

The Welsh Government acknowledges the importance of developing and growing bilingual capabilities in public appointments in Wales, and welcomes applications from candidates who demonstrate their capability to work in both English and Welsh.  The following list of language requirements represents an objective assessment by the recruiting body of the Welsh language skills required to undertake the duties of this particular post.

The Advisory Board is looking for individuals who are existing public service leaders and meet the following criteria:

Essential skills and knowledge:

• Ability to think and act both strategically and analytically;

• Demonstrate capability and experience in delivering the duties as outlined in the requirements of members;

• Candidates would be expected to have knowledge and/or experience of key leadership and behavioural theories/models and demonstrate through role modelling their interest in leadership and leadership development;

• Have good judgement, a high level of integrity and public responsibility, coupled with the ability to participate in making difficult decisions;

• Ability to interpret and communicate information effectively orally, in writing and through a variety of media channels;

• The ability to serve either without conflict of interest or to demonstrate how they would deal with any potential real or perceived conflict;

• Advise and inform on the key drivers impacting on those working within the public and third sectors in Wales to influence change and improve their skills, knowledge and behaviours;

A minimum of one Welsh language speaker appointment is deemed essential on the basis of representing the Board as the designated Welsh Speaker. A preference for a higher level of understanding and speaking skills is required together with a basic level of reading and writing of simple work-related correspondence on everyday topics.

15/09/2017, 23:55

The closing date for this position has been extended to Friday 15 September 2017.

For further information regarding the role of the Academi Wales Advisory Board and the role of the Members please contact Jo Hicks or Paul Schanzer:

Tel: 0300 0250990 and 0300 0251228
Email: academiwales@wales.gsi.gov.uk

To apply for this role, click on the ‘Apply’ button below. The first time you apply for a post, you will need to complete a registration form for the Welsh Government’s online application system. You will only need to register once, and you will be able to keep yourself updated on the progress of your application, and any other applications you make, via your registered account.

Once you’ve registered, you’ll be able to access the application form. To apply you will need to upload an Expression of Interest to the ‘Reasons for applying’ section of the online application form.

Expression of Interest

The expression of interest is your opportunity to demonstrate how you meet each of the criteria set out in the person specification. How you choose to present the information is up to you. However, you should aim to provide detailed examples that demonstrate how your knowledge and experience matches each of the criteria, and which describe what your role was in achieving a specific result. It will benefit the selection panel if you can be clear which particular evidence you provide relates to which criteria. Providing separate paragraphs in relation to each criterion is common practice.

Please limit your expression of interest to two pages. Your application may be rejected if you exceed this limit.

In your application, you will also be asked to provide details of any activities which have helped you to develop skills that would be useful in a public appointment role, and list the organisations for which you undertook these activities. We also need to know about any political activity that you’ve undertaken over the last 5 years.

It is recommended that you register for an account and access the application form as soon as possible so that you see how the application form is structured, before starting to prepare your evidence. You don’t have to complete the application form all in one go. You can save your responses, and log in and out as required, until you’re ready to submit – just follow the guidance in the application form.

If you’d like to apply for this opportunity in Welsh, please use the ‘Newid Iaith / Change Language’ link at the top of this page, to take you to the Welsh version of this advert, from which you can apply in Welsh.

If you need any further assistance in applying for this role, please contact the Welsh Government’s Corporate Shared Service Centre Helpdesk on 029 2082 5454 or SharedServiceHelpdesk@wales.gsi.gov.uk

For further information about Public Appointments in Wales, please visit www.gov.wales/publicappointments