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Centre for Ageing Better
Trustee Appointments
Appointment Brief
April 2015
Introduction
from Geoffrey Filkin, Chair,
Centre for Ageing Better
The Centre for Ageing Better aims to
help many more people have a better
later life by identifying evidence of what
works and by encouraging change in
line with this evidence.
Importantly we also recognise that
effective partnerships are fundamental
for bringing about change, and we will
seek to build committed partnerships
across all our activities.
A charitable foundation, we are entirely
independent from government and from
business interests, with an anticipated
lifespan of ten years. We are part of
the network of What Works Centres
and benefit from a £50m endowment
awarded by the Big Lottery Fund in
January 2015.
By the end of our ten years, we intend
that more people will know how to plan
and prepare for a better later life and
more will do so: More organisations will
know what works to support individuals
and society to enjoy better later lives,
more of them will act on this evidence,
and the broader conversation around
an ageing society will have evolved so
that, as a nation, England will be ready
to celebrate longer later life and see the
benefits arising from greater numbers
of older people.
We want to make change happen in
order to improve later life – especially
for those older people who are currently
missing out on the benefits of a longer
life. We will do this by selecting a limited
number of topics that really matter
to people and then working on those
topics persistently; commissioning
studies that harness and strengthen
the evidence base around ageing;
funding projects that support better
ageing – including innovative projects
that require seed funding as well as
proven projects that require support to
operate at greater scale; working with
individuals and organisations to help
bring about evidence-based change;
and sharing insights from our work,
through published reports and other
means of communication.
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
In order to achieve this we seek four
new Board members, all of whom will
bring particular skills, experience and
expertise that will enhance our ability to
operationalise our strategic ambitions
and strengthen our impact.
Within the rest of this pack you will find
information about our work, values,
structure and strategic plans for the
future. You will also find specific details
on our requirements and information
on how to apply for these exceptional
opportunities.
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About Us
The Centre for Ageing Better (the Centre) will
involve older people and will identify the issues
that matter most to them. We will identify where
our capabilities allow us to effect the greatest
impact and manage and deliver programmes,
working in partnership with other bodies.
We will continually evaluate and adjust our
portfolio of activities and build an organisation
that is fit for purpose.
Our aim
Where are we today?
The challenge
The opportunity for a longer life is one of our society’s
greatest achievements and many older people enjoy
extensive benefit from this. But the inequalities in later
life are striking and shocking; many other older people
live shorter lives, are unhealthy for more of their later life,
are poorer than they expected, are lonely and isolated,
and lack meaning in their lives. There are very diverse
experiences of ageing across different parts of the
country and across different social and identity groups.
Equally, the discourse around an ageing society is
negative; too often, ageing is seen as a problem, rather
than as a great asset for society and for individuals.
The Centre aims to help many more people have a
better later life by applying evidence of what works
and by driving change in line with this evidence.
This evidence has given us a clear understanding
of what people want for a better later life and a clear
analytic of where change is needed to make this
possible across four key domains of better health,
better finances, better relationships and better places.
The Centre for Ageing Better recognises that more
needs to be done by individuals, their families and
society as a whole, as well as by public bodies,
to achieve these outcomes. The Centre’s analysis and
our discussions last year with stakeholders and the
public around the development of our business plan
has confirmed that there is a clear need for an
organisation that:
• Adopts an entirely independent position - from which
it is possible to survey the entire landscape, see the
whole picture, and challenge wherever it is needed
• Champions the generation and use of evidence
across all the domains of people’s experience of
ageing - and then connects the evidence base to the
levers of change, using the evidence to drive impact
• Focuses on people and their needs, rather than
simply on public services
• Targets relatively neglected areas – in particular,
prevention and optimisation, and understanding
and tackling inequalities
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
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Our Approach
Our approach will be evidence-led and
programme-based, with the ability to take
the long view as well as to be agile and
responsive to new issues that emerge over
the life of the Centre.
Given the scale of our ambition, and the breadth of
the canvas across which we will operate, the Centre
will need to develop a portfolio of initiatives, and the
design and management of this portfolio will require
considerable skill if we are to generate the maximum
impact possible from our endowment.
The Centre will also need to be highly effective in
selecting the topics on which it will work, delivering
programmes to generate impact for beneficiaries,
monitoring and evaluating our activity, and adjusting
our portfolio and ways of working over time.
How will we select topics for our initial portfolio?
Using the four domains of better ageing as our starting
point, we have prepared a list of topics for potential
inclusion in the Centre’s initial portfolio of work:
• Healthy Living for All
• Extending Working Lives
• Social Connectedness
• Sustaining Independence in the Home
• Ready for Ageing Locally: What Works?
• Ageism: Understanding its Perception and Impact
• Inequality in Ageing Outcomes
• The Contribution of Older People to a Better Later Life
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
How we will adjust the portfolio – and our ways
of working – over time?
The Centre envisages a gradual expansion of the size
of the overall portfolio over the first few years of the
Centre’s life. In the first year, we will initiate work on up
to six topics and may then add two to four further topics
across years two and three. By our fourth year, we
anticipate that sufficient progress will have been made
across the portfolio to warrant a reassessment of its
shape and composition.
We envisage a range of options for individual
programmes: We may stop work because we feel we
have been successful – or because we have been
unsuccessful; we may continue continuing at the same
size and scale of commitment or expand or reduce the
level of resources. In addition, and as a result of these
considerations, the reshaping of the portfolio may create
space for new topics to be added – both for scoping
work, and for programme delivery.
Financial Strength
The Centre received £50 million from the Big Lottery
Fund in January 2015 in the form of an endowment
to enable it to identify what works for a better later life
by bridging the gap between research, evidence and
practice. The Centre is currently in start-up mode with
an interim Chief Executive and a small team undertaking
the preparatory work that needs to be completed if
we are to make good progress in advance of autumn
2015, when the Centre’s Board and Permanent Chief
Executive will take decisions on the composition of its
initial portfolio of activities.
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Conclusion
There is much that we can do to drive evidencebased change around ageing. Across the ten
years of the Centre’s life, it is realistic to aim for
significant progress in key outcomes across our
domains, and to help create a country in which:
• More individuals and organisations have a better
understanding of what works to deliver opportunities
for better health, stronger personal finances,
continuing participation in the world of work,
more and better volunteer-based support, housing
that fits changing needs, and localities that are
genuinely age-friendly
• More individuals act on this understanding, building
and reinforcing the habits and behaviours that give
them the best chance of a richer later life
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
• Existing organisations adapt their services and
offerings to reflect the evidence of what works
• New organisations and services come into being
and, if they can prove their effectiveness, operate at
sufficient scale to tackle the problems that existing
provision is unable to solve – and thereby help people
to live a better later life
Old age will never be a period entirely without challenge
and suffering. But it is now clear that human ageing is
much more malleable than has been previously thought.
Many more people can arrive at old age healthy and
cognitively fit, and many more can enjoy states of
wellbeing for longer periods of their later years.
Our task is to help identify and apply the evidence that
makes these outcomes possible. We are excited by this
task and we look forward to doing this important work.
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Role Profile
These pro bono appointments bring rewards
other than money. If you would like to play
a part in helping many more people have a
better later life, this is a great opportunity to
bring your skills, knowledge and expertise to
help us deliver on our mission. Travel expenses
directly incurred in our roles as Trustees on
official business are reimbursed.
Board and Committee meetings are held at our office
in central London. Trustees are appointed for an initial
three year term with the opportunity to extend for a
further three year period subject to board performance
reviews. The time commitment is approximately 2
days per month, expected to comprise of 4 quarterly
Board meetings, a strategy away day, and committee
meetings. There are always opportunities to become
more involved with specific projects if desired.
Responsibilities of a Trustee
The Trustees, acting together, govern the charity,
safeguarding its assets and applying them as efficiently
and effectively as possible to further the charity’s
objectives as set out in its governing document.
Specific responsibilities
• Ensure that the organisation complies with its
governing document
• Ensure that all the charity’s activities are within its
objects and within the law and relevant regulations
• From time to time to review the charity’s strategy so it
remains up to date and relevant to the needs of older
people
• Safeguard the charity’s ethos, its good name and the
values of the organisation
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
• Work with the executive team to develop and agree
strategic goals and objectives, and assess whether
the executive team’s strategy to achieve these
is reasonable in relation to the risks involved, the
resources required and the benefits to be achieved
• Monitor the charity’s progress towards the
achievement of its strategic goals and objectives and
monitor the impact of its activities
• Define the parameters on which the budget will
be based, agree the budget and monitor financial
performance
• Ensure that the executive has implemented an
effective risk identification and management process
• Ensure that the executive has implemented effective
internal control systems and management information
systems
• As and when necessary appoint a Chief Executive,
support him or her, agree their performance goals,
monitor their performance against the specified goals,
and agree their remuneration package
• Establish and, as necessary, review a clear framework
of delegation to committees and the Chief Executive,
monitor compliance with that framework and hold
Committees and the Chief Executive accountable for
the authority that has been delegated to them
• Be accountable to funders, grant givers and
other stakeholders for the way in which they have
discharged their responsibilities as trustees
• Represent the Board’s position when speaking
publicly
• Assist with the identification and search for new
Trustees
• Review the Board’s own performance periodically and
build an effective team spirit across Trustees and the
executive
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Role Profile
Requirements
Trustees will be able to
In order to carry out your duties as a Trustee you will be
required to:
•Identify with and be motivated by the values and
objectives of the Centre for Ageing Better
• Act in the best interests of older people, setting
aside the interests of any organisation that you may
represent
• Enthuse the wider world with the Centre’s aims
and mission
• Attend as many of the Trustee Board meetings a year
as possible
• Devote the necessary time and effort to developing a
good understanding of the Centre for Ageing Better
and its activities, reading papers and undertaking
other preparatory work for meetings attending
Committee or Task Group meetings as required,
advising staff if requested, attending events and
undertaking training any necessary training
• Think innovatively, critically, independently and
strategically, with a proven track record of translating
strategy into operational plans
• Demonstrate a healthy understanding of risk and its
benefits and be prepared to take such risks, bringing
entrepreneurial instincts
• Contribute effectively within a talented Board,
bringing a willingness and ability to input
constructively
• Command the respect of fellow Trustees and the
Executive team
• Demonstrate a consultative, strategic and
supportive style
• Demonstrate Nolan’s seven principles of public life:
selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability,
openness, honesty and leadership
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
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Specific Requirements
We are now seeking to appoint four new
members to our Board; a finance / accountancy
professional; an individual with research
expertise; a marketing and communications
specialist; an individual who will represent the
voice of some of the most marginalised older
people in society.
Research Methodology Trustee
Finance / Accountancy Trustee
This appointment will ensure that the Centre’s work
is tested against the real needs and issues affecting
those most disadvantage in later life. This individual will
preferably have worked with community ‘grass roots’
organisations delivering frontline services, and perhaps
bring experience of establishing a social enterprise or
experience of the social investment space.
This qualified accountant will provide financial
stewardship and preferably experience of personal
finance issues, including a broad overview of savings,
pensions and insurance products, likely from a private
sector background.
Marketing & Communications Trustee
The Centre recognises the profound challenge of
getting its synthesised evidence to its varied target
audiences and stakeholders, thereby building a social
movement and constructing a system to influence
policy. We seek an individual with a broad marketing and
communications background who can help advise on
the development of the Centre’s positioning, messaging
and branding, bringing a broad understanding of the
stakeholders and audiences which the Centre interacts
with and how best we interact.
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
The Centre is interested in identifying candidates with a
blend of social and medical research expertise, including
candidates working at a higher level of abstraction who
can bridge the gap between medical and social science
research methodology.
Older Person’s Voice Trustee
New Trustees will be expected to bring an overarching
understanding of governance, be intellectually adept and
evidence a collaborative approach, with well-developed
listening skills, demonstrating a positive attitude towards
our work.
Applicants will also be expected to understand
issues around diversity and inequality and have an
understanding of the issues faced by those who do not
benefit from the opportunities a longer life should afford.
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How to Apply
To apply in confidence to become a Trustee of the
Centre for Ageing Better, please forward your CV or
an extended biography together with a supporting
statement and a list of any directorships or trusteeships
that you currently hold. Please ensure that your
application fully addresses the requirements of the role
for which you are applying.
You should give the names, positions, organisations and
telephone contact numbers of two referees, relevant
to this role. References will only be taken once your
express permission has been granted.
You are also invited to complete the monitoring
form. The information on the form will be treated as
confidential and used for statistical purposes. The form
will not be treated as part of your application. We would
also be grateful if you could let us know if you will require
any special provision as a result of any disability should
you be called for interview.
Finally please ensure that you have included mobile,
work and home telephone numbers, as well as any
dates when you will not be available or might have
difficulty with the indicative timetable.
Timetable
Published advert closing date: Monday 15th July
Preliminary interviews at Prospectus: Monday 29th
June to Friday 10th July
Final panel interviews:
Community: Tuesday 21st July
Finance/Accountancy: Wednesday 22nd July
Marketing and Communications: Friday 24th July
Research Methodology: Week commencing 20th July
These dates may be subject to change and candidates
will be advised in advance should this happen.
Recruitment Process
You will receive feedback within five working days of the
closing date. Shortlisted candidates may be required to
undertake additional assessment prior to the interview.
If you have any questions on any aspect of the
appointment process, need additional information or
wish to have an informal discussion, please contact
Philip Nelson on 020 7691 1920 or via email at
[email protected]
Applications should be submitted via our website at
http://prospect-us.co.uk/jobs/details/hq00157043
Applications can also be posted to Sarah Hill,
Prospectus, 20-22 Stukeley Street, London WC2B 5LR
Trustee Appointments | April 2015
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