Susan Smith spoke to Andrew Burns and Anna Fowlie about taking on the two top roles at Scotland's third sector umbrella body

It’s all change at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) - after 26 years Martin Sime retired as chief executive of the national support body in December and a new chief executive is due to start in April.

Anna Fowlie is coming to the organisation as it also goes through some major changes at board level, with former City of Edinburgh Council leader Andrew Burns taking over as convener in January, and recruitment for four new board members due to begin within the next month.

So, what does this mean for SCVO and the third sector more widely?

Well, it’s probably too early to say exactly, but meeting with Anna and Andrew recently for an introductory chat, it was clear that we’re entering a period of change for SCVO internally and externally.

With both are admittedly “public sector through and through”, some may be concerned about what their idea of change might mean.

Can they really turn themselves into third sector champions at this stage in their careers?

“All I can do at the moment is respond in words, but people are going to have judge us, both of us, on our record over the coming months and years,” said Andrew.

“I’ve got nothing but admiration for the way the vast majority of people in the third sector copes with the pressures that are upon them. I became more and more aware in the last five years as council leader of the amount of work the third sector was taking on here in the city and across the Lothians, and doing a very, very professional job.”

There is a perception that the voluntary sector can provide services at the cheap end of the market, and I think that is utterly wrong – Andrew Burns

Andrew brings an insider's perspective on the often thorny relationships that exist between the third sector and local authorities. He worked closely with Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council, Edinburgh Volunteer Centre and the Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network during his 18 years as a councillor.

“There is a perception that the voluntary sector can provide services at the cheap end of the market, and I think that is utterly wrong,” he says. “It should not be viewed as such and I think there’s plenty of people in in the public sector and local government as well who know that and understand that. Unfortunately, there’s lots of people who don’t, but I think that’s changing.”

Anna, who is taking on SCVO's chief executive role after eight years leading the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), Scotland’s social care regulatory, is familiar with the challenges facing social care, in which 6,500 Scottish charities currently operate – a third of all charities and half of Scotland’s entire third sector workforce.

And while SSSC regulates public, private and third sector social care bodies, her personal belief that “fundamentally, it’s wrong to make a profit out of vulnerability” suggests the move to the third sector is one that fits her values.

“I never flexed my regulatory muscles in my current role within the SSSC, but I was on the verge of doing so last year because I think that the commissioning model that operates in social care at the moment actually prevents people who work in social services from complying with their codes of practise,” she said. “We talk about promoting the needs of the individual, about independence, about person centred services, yet commissioning acts against that.”

Anna is frustrated that commissioners in the public sector create contracts that specifically exclude things like training and development time, for example, and she is now looking to the Fair Work Convention’s sub group on social care for action on this issue.

“I might be local government born and bred,” she said. “But I know there’s a lot to be challenged.”

And, after eight years as a regulator, Anna is clearly keen to get stuck into that fight. Having worked for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities prior to SSSC, she relishes returning to a more combative public affairs role.

I might be local government born and bred, but I know there's a lot to be challenged – Anna Fowlie

“The rhetoric we have right now in Scotland is actually quite good around community empowerment and around the role of the voluntary sector,” she explained. “But some of the action doesn’t match that rhetoric. I think what we need is a time of constructive challenge.”

In relation to the sector though, her desire is for a more cooperative approach, bringing disparate voices together to speak from a stronger single platform on the issues that affect all third sector organisations. As a long-standing board member of Who Cares? Scotland, she’s aware of the power the third sector can wield when it works together.

And this is where Andrew’s collaborative leadership style looks set to come into play. He is proud of his record leading Scotland’s only SNP/Labour coalition between 2012 and 2015, the turbulent Scottish referendum years.

“Not just me, but collectively, we managed to hold that coalition together during the most tumultuous time in Scottish politics,” he said. “It didn’t get a huge amount of attention, because since the establishment of the parliament local government doesn’t get its due amount of attention, but if anything speaks for my collaborative style, surely that does. Believe me there were lots of people, in my party, who weren’t happy about it!”

Funnily enough, Andrew’s closest previous contact with SCVO was during a similar period. In the 1990s he worked closely with SCVO, the Scottish Trades Union Congress and Action of Churches Together in Scotland to campaign for a Scottish Assembly, which lead to the opening of the parliament in 1999.

“I’ve always had a view that organisations like SCVO and STUC are champions of civil society,” he said. “I think that’s different from down south. I feel in Scotland SCVO and STUC are much more vibrant and I’ve always had a great deal of respect for that.”

More recently, Anna has been aware of and impressed by the “valuable” work SCVO has been doing to increase digital participation across Scotland, which she believe has done much to boost the organisation’s reputation across the country, and both Anna and Andrew discovered these new jobs after spotting them on the SCVO-run jobs site Goodmoves.

However, it seems Anna's also picked up on some areas where the organisation hasn’t always been viewed in such a positive light.

“I think SCVO has an absolutely pivotal role and it’s really important to be really visible and be a voice for its members,” she said.

“What I’ve seen over the years is a bit of a shift in that; sometimes it’s a voice for its membership and sometimes it’s an organisation that provides services. So, can it be both? Probably – it’s doing both just now. But, it’s one of the things I’d like to look at – where’s the balance between being a voice and a champion in among government policy, and providing physical support, whether its property or payroll.

“I do think there’s challenges, and SCVO needs to find a coherence as an organisation and work out what its mission is.”

One of Anna’s own recent leadership style assessments rated her as collaborative, alongside empathetic, passionate and strategic. These sound like good traits for a chief executive intent on spending her first 100 days “learning, absorbing, getting to know people, in particular my chair and staff, and then making decisions about the future.”

So, the coming year will be an interesting one for SCVO both internally and externally as the organisation reviews its position and considers its future. Both Andrew and Anna admit they have a lot to learn about full breadth of the third sector, but their enthusiasm and excitement for the task in hand is unmistakeable.

Andrew Burns is at the Gathering on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 February at the SEC. TFN will be live interviewing him at 1.40pm on Wednesday, so come along if you want to put a question to him.

Anna starts as SCVO chief executive on Monday 16 April.