Appointments committee

The committee have to consider changes in appointments in the Area and with the Area Commissioner review appropriate appointments, certificates of appointment and adventurous activity authorisations.

Following the suspension of an adult within the Area, the AAA Committee needs to be involved in the recommendation of continuation of suspension of the individual, whether they should be re-instated or whether there should be a cancellation or modification of the individual’s appointment.

They also support the Area Commissioner in the resolution of disagreements involving individuals within the Area.

The Committee usually set monthly meetings a year in advance, normally avoiding December (Scout post) and August. As necessary ad hoc meetings can be arranged as well.

Training of AAAC members

Members of the committee need to be competent to carry out their role and it is quite normal for many of them to have been active in or still be active in Scouting along with some specific skills from their professional lives. The minimum training requirement is that the individual committee members completed  Module 1 (Essential Information), GDPR, Safety, Safeguarding and Module 37 (Advising on Adult Appointments)

In advance of any meeting the individual will have completed the relevant documentation which has been passed to the Area Administrator.

The Area Administrator calls for references and for those individuals already in Scouting pulls the relevant information from Compass.

Prior to the meeting the members of the AAAC who will be seeing the individual receive copies of the documentation and ensure there is no conflict of interest or information missing. It is imperative that the references are included in this documentation.

The Area Administrator will invite individuals to meet with three of the AAAC members and ask the individual to confirm their attendance.

The individual will be welcomed to the meeting by the Chair, introductions are made and the individual is advised that the AAAC are meeting them as they have applied for a specific role or have been invited to consider a specific role

We always check the role they have applied for just in case an error has been made.

We usually ask the individual:

• to take us through their Scouting background (if they have one) which tends to make them relax; sometimes this information will open the way for a question or questions.
• to take us through the experience they have for the role they have applied for or been approached about (this might be Scouting, other voluntary experience or professional experience)
• to explain what Scouting training they have completed, if not completed why they have not completed
• to explain as necessary what specialist training they have completed (depending on the role)
• to show us they understand the role (job description) they are being seen for
• to explain as necessary the health and safety requirements for the role
• to explain as necessary the safe guarding requirements for the role
• to show they understand what additional training they may need to do for the role

It is very much a dialogue and we attempt to make the meeting as comfortable as possible. We give them the opportunity to ask questions if they have any.

We explain the next steps – if everything seems fine we say we will speak to the Area Administrator and that she will complete the relevant documentation.

If we are awaiting references we tell them that – sometimes we have to ask for them to either supply an additional referee’s name or ask them to chase.

Documentation along with our comments from the meeting is returned to Area Administrator who will then take the required steps for the approval of the appointment.