Deciding who does what

Who?

This document and process is aimed at those who are already involved in ARC governance and are interested in undertaking additional activities and opportunities that arise from time to time within ARC governance.  Usually this means:

• Strategy Board Public Partners
• LEAP Members
• Theme PPI Leads

What?

This process is designed to help us make decisions about:

• who is allocated individual pieces of work
• who joins working groups (or other similar activities)

This process is for opportunities that are only open to public contributors already involved in ARC governance.  We can also use it for making decisions about any other opportunities that are limited. For example, training courses, conferences etc.

For appointments to be a Strategy Board Public Partner, a LEAP Member, a Theme PPI Lead (if not already a Strategy Board Public Partner or LEAP Member) or other roles that are open to applicants not already involved in ARC governance, people must go through a full selection process including: application, application review, informal chat.  This is then followed by an induction period.  Details of these processes are available separately and usually updated for each recruitment activity.

Process

We have designed a simple expression of interest process for internal opportunities to help us make decisions about who does what.  The process is also designed to avoid ‘first come first served’ situations where those who are fastest to respond are chosen.  Decisions will be based on 3 different things:

• Expression of interest.  This is so we know who is interested and why they are interested.
• Skills, knowledge and experience register.  This part of the process is not just about making decisions based on existing skills, knowledge and experience but is also a way to help make decisions that support public contributors to gain skills, knowledge and experience.  The importance of this will depend on whether activities/tasks are for an individual, for someone who will be working independently or for working as a group and whether support can be provided to help develop skills, knowledge etc.
• Spreading the load/opportunities.  This means we will take into account who is already doing what.  We will aim to achieve a fair balance between people but not at the expense of making use of or building skills, knowledge and experience or supporting people to be involved in what they are interested in.

This process involves 3 steps:

Step 1: Put together details of the opportunity, including:

• a brief description of the task/activity
• how many people will be needed for the activity/task
• clear guidance on how long the task/activity will take and over how long a period (i.e. what people are committing to), with the understanding that this may be difficult to define in advance in certain circumstances.
• the fee that is expected to be paid (not just the rate but the anticipated number of hours)
• clearly state how the task/activity will be undertaken (e.g. online, in person, independently, or a mixture of these)
• identify any specific skills/knowledge/requirements
• give a deadline for submitting an expression of interest and when a decision will be made (usually as soon as possible but as far as possible within a week of the submission date)
• anything else that is considered important

Step 2: Circulate details of the opportunity to all governance public contributors (as detailed in ‘Who?’ on page 1) as follows:

• Usually shared in a simple email but it can be done in a document if this is felt appropriate.
• Include the details from Step 1
• Include details of how to express an interest:
  • How to submit their expression of interest e.g. by replying to the email
  • What to include in their expression of interest e.g. please tell us why you would like to be considered for the opportunity and what you would like to get out of being involved.  What you ask here can be different, but the key is to keep it simple and relevant – people shouldn’t feel they need to ‘sell’ themselves – it is simply a way for people to explain why they would like to get involved.
  • Remind people of the deadline for submitting an expression of interest.

Step 3: Making a decision:

• It can be helpful to involve someone else in the process, especially if there are a lot of expressions of interest.  This can be a member of the ARC TV staff team or a governance public contributor who has not submitted an expression of interest.  Ideally it would be a co-chair of the group or a public contributor with ARC TV recruitment experience.
• The decision should be made as soon as possible but within a week of the submission date.  If it is likely to take longer make sure to let people know when the opportunity is shared or as soon as possible if this changes.
• Make sure to consider:
  • the expression of interest
  • existing expertise/development needs based on the skills, knowledge and experience register and the balance of skills, knowledge and experience needed for the task/activity taking into account whether this is a role for one person, independent working or a group activity.
  • what people are already involved in.
  • balance in the group, for example not everyone needs to have lots of experience or none!
• We will aim to make fair decisions and, if appropriate, we can use a simple scoring process (e.g. when there are multiple people to choose between).  This will be based on the following:
  • Skills, knowledge and experience – scoring between 1 for no relevant experience and 10 for all relevant experience.
  • Potential for personal development – scoring between 1 for no personal development opportunities and 10 for lots of development opportunity.
  • Existing involvement – scoring between 1 for most current involvement and 10 for least current involvement.
  • This is not an exact science but is a way to help us fairly consider all of the elements and make fair decisions.
• Email people with the outcome and provide details of the next steps.

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Examples

The following are a couple of examples of opportunities that might be shared: