This is not what Girlguiding is for!

[averylongtimeago]

I've been involved in Guiding since I started as a Brownie in the '60's.
I've been camping, I've tried absailing, rock climbing, canoeing, learnt lots of useful skills, made friends, enabled girls to go on international trips, climbed trees, so many things- too many to list!

Guiding is not and never has been, a political organization. Or so I thought!

https://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/girlguiding/general-election-advisor/930045?tsId=6&fbclid=IwAR3kbgE97UilEgp-R1Fs90pLMZEwfO2UYoSlQHtO0syVpFh0g5aMMU0Y700aemAaI7b8y1SjOSSUC7vzuOBk4ri3fNf241HHDWSmmeot-AujtJFEhJnMhTJZONwI4buz0

This line stands out "The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive public affairs plan aimed at influencing the upcoming general election."

This is not what Guiding is for!

I think it is a clumsily written advert. I would assume it meant political lobbying not election result engineering.

Totally agree OP. Such a sad direction of travel for a once-brilliant organisation. So much good work still goes on at unit level but HQ have lost their minds

They've not said "influence the outcome of the election", they've said "influence the upcoming general election". That means put relevant issues across so that they get discussed by candidates, put in manifestos etc. Presumably issues relating to girls, youth. They wouldn't be allowed to lobby for a specific party even if they wanted to.

We’re looking for a skilled and experienced public affairs advisor to join our team at Girlguiding. The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive public affairs plan aimed at influencing the upcoming general election. The ideal candidate will possess a deep understanding of political landscapes, excellent communication skills, and a proven track record of successfully navigating the intricacies of public affairs to achieve strategic goals. This role will work across the organisation, but specifically with senior stakeholders across and our strategy department.

If it was working with any government of the day they would not care about the GE.

This role is to become political in the run-up to a GE and changing the outcome.

If they were looking to have more members vote that is what the job say it would be about.
Eg
Creating an understanding of the voting process (But hang on a lot of the active members can not vote yet)

Why the need to go from the macro of how a party policy impacts GG to looking at the micro of individual candidates?

Stakeholder engagement:
• Identify and establish relationships with key political stakeholders
>> Pick your horses

• Seek opportunities to collaborate across the sector(s) and develop joint manifestos
>> Support the training methods and help

• Collaborate with internal senior stakeholders to ensure consistent messaging and alignment
>> ensure that everybody it on the stands cheering as the race begins.

Its the beginning of a lobby group for an approved political ideology

This. Stop misquoting the wording and saying they're trying to influence the outcome, you're just making yourself look daft.

OP this is not ‘a lot of very well paid employees’

im actually pretty shocked by how few people they have being paid decent kind salaries.

£40k is tough to live on in London. Many many corporate jobs that are easier and less stressful will pay more than their chief executive.

from this salary numbers alone I’d guess they only have one or two in their in house legal team, and not every senior people at that. Which given the breadth of topics and responsibilities they have to cover is not enough.

for me it maybe explains how they’ve got into such difficulties over the trans thing. Being over stretched likely they turned to external and free sources of advice and guidance (eg from Stonewall) and implemented it without thinking about much at all. Trans issues are uniquely difficult for girls and women only orgs to deal with and by the looks of it they just don’t have the resources to do so properly.

i agree with others GG has a legitimate and important role encouraging girls and women to participate in the political process and general election. If they are recruiting for someone to help make that happen while being mindful of the org not backing one party over another, that’s great.

again though that is a big and challenge task - one person on £40k a year is not enough to do it well.

This is nothing especially new. I worked for Girlguiding doing public affairs years ago and part of that work involved influencing the 2010 general election: ensuring parties thought about issues that mattered to girls (and to a lesser extend volunteering organisations) when compiling their manifestos, identifying candidates with an interest in issues of relevance to girls and building relationships with them and providing information for any local units who wanted to contact local candidates so that they knew what they legally could and couldn't do and how to avoid doing anything biased towards one party over another.

Sadly, this is what comms and public affairs officers in the public sector in London earn

And it's a vital role! Why shouldn't GG spend on this type of role?

Better that than a comms/ campaigning agency! They probably have one of those too

The government committed last year to giving several million pounds to girlguiding and scouts last year to help tackle the pandemic backlog of waiting lists. The result, no doubt of lobbying by one of those "overpaid" people. Who brought in several million pounds to their organisation for a £40-60k salary - doesn't sound overpaid to me.

Some charity roles are too important to be done by unskilled volunteers.

It's a lobbying role. Totally normal and standard.

By 'influencing' they don't mean influencing the outcome of the general election. They mean having discussions with the main parties in the hope that said parties will include policies favourable to Girlguiding in their manifestos. They don't mean they will be campaigning on behalf of any of the parties.

Lobbying and public affairs are really important areas for charities that can make a huge difference and bring about positive change. All large charities will have roles like this.

And yes, it absolutely does need some skilled and paid to do that job. It's not something a volunteer could just pick up, at all.

Stakeholder engagement:
• Identify and establish relationships with key political stakeholders
• Seek opportunities to collaborate across the sector(s) and develop joint manifestos
• Collaborate with internal senior stakeholders to ensure consistent messaging and alignment

^ has no voting member as a stakeholder so it ia not a role about getting women voting in elections.

Being over stretched likely they turned to external and free sources of advice and guidance (eg from Stonewall) and implemented it without thinking about much at all.

Anyone in a position of trust who argues that they were to stupid to think about how the introduction of males into a single sex female only organisation would impact and still agreeded to it anyway should resign on the spot.

Trans issues are uniquely difficult for girls and women only orgs to deal with and by the looks of it they just don’t have the resources to do so properly.

If the organisation decided they did not have the resources the logical choice it to not enter the provision of services space. They were an organisation which provided services to girls os learing errors or building out experience (or any other catchphrase) is the risk of direct harm or the actual harm to a girl.

The GG management decided to "sack" a woman and then decided to commit resources to defend their decision to allow males in th GG and exclude girls from GG in a Court of law.

That is not an accidental position for any organisation to take.

The woman they decided to fight in court was unpaid they could have asked (paid the legal fee equivelant) her to highlight problem areas and ask their adult leadership to provide collective wisdom via feed back of suggestions and solutions. The GG management choose not to do that.

That is not an accidental position for any organisation to take.

GG continue to allow males into the organisation and continue to instruct that the parents of members should not be informed when their girls are being placed in a mixed sex space.

That is not an accidental position for any organisation to take.

GG continue to carryout risk assessments on the basis of the membership being single sex.

That is not an accidental position for any organisation to take.