Principal Participation Officer (Community Wealth Fund)
Salary: £52,282
Grade: Level 5, Zone 1
Location: 5 Pancras Square, London, N1C 4AG
Contract type: Permanent
Hours: 36, Full Time
Closing date: Sunday 30th June 2024; 23:59
** AGENCY STAFF, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO APPLY - Please do not click on the Apply Now tab at the bottom of this page as your application will not be considered. **
About Camden
We want Camden to be a better borough – a place where everyone has a chance to succeed and nobody gets left behind. Together, with citizens and organisations who call Camden their home, we will create a place that works for everyone and where everyone has a voice. Camden citizens want more of a say over the future of their communities – they have power, energy and ideas that need to be valued and supported. We have already done so much to open up the Council and enable people and organisations to come together to solve common problems – but we have big ambitions to go further.
What You’ll Be Doing / How You’ll Be Involved
We’re looking for a participation expert who can help us to strengthen community voice and ensure that we’re working alongside residents to drive the detailed design and decision making of The Camden Community Wealth Fund.
The Camden Community Wealth Fund is a mission-driven social impact investment fund that will invest in Camden organisations, businesses and people to drive value for Camden’s people, and change the investment and funding market for the better. With an initial capitalisation of £30m and missions to deliver economic opportunity for young people and diversity of people in positions of power, the Fund is an ambitious and bold intervention in our economy that has made a commitment to put citizen involvement and decision-making at its core.
The Fund aims to extend greater equality of opportunity for young people and those from historically underrepresented groups across Camden, it will be critical to meaningfully involve these groups of people throughout The Camden Community Wealth Fund - from design to evaluation.
As part of the Community Wealth Fund programme team, you will lead and manage the citizen co-design process to shape the participation approach and governance of the Fund. You will work with citizens to ensure investment decisions are rooted in local knowledge and experiences, that the Fund is held accountable against its principles and values, and that it captures the benefits that investments make locally. Your role will include the development and implementation of the participatory model, working with key community actors and partners so that a diversity of citizens have a say in how the investment and associated activities serves the community to deliver on its strategic mission. As part of the role, you will line manage local residents who we recruit to work us for example, ‘Citizen Scientists’, coaching and supporting them to bring residents’ voices and experiences to the fore.
You will support the programme to connect with the wealth of social capital already in the borough, developing a greater understanding of informal community networks and organisers and breaking down barriers to involve and inspire citizens who may not have participated before. Working alongside the Community Wealth Fund Community Team, you will champion the Fund to our current and future network of community actors, helping it to reach and be accessible to all communities, with a particular focus on those from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
You will be experienced in designing and delivering deliberative engagement and democracy approaches, for example, Citizen Assembly, Participatory Grant Making, Participatory Budgeting etc, and will work with colleagues across the organisation to develop new approaches to bringing citizens closer to service and policy design and decision making. You will champion and enable citizen social activism across the borough and support the Council and partner organisations to connect and work collaboratively with local people.
Further information about the Fund - The Camden Community Wealth Fund.
Further information about We Make Camden - About – We Make Camden
To view the Job Profile and review more information about the role, please click HERE or copy and paste the below URL into your browser:
http://camdocs.camden.gov.uk/HPRMWebDrawer/Record/10537058/file/document?inline
All About You
You will be a natural collaborator, who is experienced at working across organisation barriers to enable positive change for our communities. You will align and enable employees, members, partners and citizens to deliver We Make Camden.
You will have expertise in leading large-scale deliberative engagement, participation and/or social action programmes which have brought citizens closer to decision making. In this role, you will work with colleagues across the organisation to test and learn new approaches to deliberative engagement and decision making and find new ways of working with citizens. You will be comfortable in navigating ambiguous situations and imaging how things could be done differently to achieve real change for Camden residents.
You will work closely with organisations who ‘Make Camden’, working with our anchor institutions, businesses and partners to champion citizen participation and come together to develop new solutions to tackling complex social and economic challenges.
You will create space for people to share and apply lessons learned to help others improve their practice and approaches. Most importantly, you are passionate about how we can work with citizens and communities to find the best possible solutions to complex challenges.
Information Session
To get a better sense of whether this role would be right for you, and to find out more about the work we do, we hope you’ll take us up on the offer and attend the information session on 17^th June at 12pm - here you will find out about the Community Wealth Fund and the roles. To get in touch and for the Teams link please contact Shahaduz.Zaman@camden.gov.uk.
What We Offer
At Camden, you’ll receive a host of benefits. From flexible working to 27 days annual leave (+ bank holidays!). We also know that a work life balance is extremely important so we also offer family leave, loan schemes and access to our incredible staff networks. We also have an incredible pensions scheme.
Visit 'www.camdenjobs.co.uk/staff-benefits' for more details of our excellent benefits scheme
Inclusion and Diversity
We want Camden Council to be a great place to work and to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce. A vital part of this is ensuring we are a truly inclusive organisation that encourages diversity in all respects, including diversity of thinking. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian and those of Other Ethnicities, LGBT+, disabled and neurodiverse communities to make a real difference to our residents so that equalities and justice remains at the heart of everything we do.
To discover more about Camden and our commitment towards diversity, equality and safeguarding, please visit https://www.camdenjobs.co.uk/inclusion-and-diversity
Anonymised Application – in keeping with Cam