Scotty’s Little Soldiers – Head of Service

Confederation of Service Charities; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 52,000 - 56,000; Full time

Job summary

A charitable organization supporting bereaved families seeks a Head of Service to lead the development and delivery of high-quality support for military-connected bereavement. You will create a culture within the Families team and foster partnerships while ensuring service consistency and scalability. The ideal candidate will bring senior experience in service delivery and a strong track record of operational leadership. This is a full-time role based in Cambridge, with a salary range of £52,000 to £56,000 depending on experience.

Qualifications

• Senior experience in service delivery, operations, or programme leadership is essential.
• Ability to turn strategy into operational structures.
• Confident in building external partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Ensure high-quality, scalable support to those affected by military-connected bereavement.
• Lead all aspects of service delivery.
• Develop adult-focused services aligned with the charity’s long-term goals.

Skills

Service delivery expertise

Team leadership

Operational structure design

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

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Scotty’s Little Soldiers – Head of Service

• Applicants must be located within 2 hours travelling distance of Cambridge City.
• Salary: 52,000 to 56,000 (Dependent on experience.)
• Type: Full-time, permanent.
• Team: Families Team and SLT
• Directly Supported By: CEO

The Charity and Our Vision.

For over 15 years, Scotty’s Little Soldiers has been supporting children and young people who have been bereaved of a parent who served in the British Armed Forces. We are about to embark on an exciting journey which will see the charity evolve to support anyone affected by a military-connected bereavement and ultimately empower a community of more than 25,000 bereaved individuals and their families by 2035.

Founded in 2010 by Nikki Scott following the death of her husband, Corporal Lee Scott, the charity currently offers a unique blend of emotional, practical, and educational support to over 750 young people.

We are proud of our vibrant, non-traditional culture, which puts the needs of bereaved children and young people at the heart of everything we do. We embrace innovative approaches, are committed to creating smiles and believe in the power of community, resilience, and connection.

Role Mission.

To ensure Scotty’s delivers high-quality, consistent, and scalable support to those affected by military-connected bereavement, by leading all aspects of service delivery.

You’ll own the structure, systems, standards, and team needed to deliver support across all four Family Programmes (SMILES, SUPPORT, STRIDES, and the planned START programme) and help ensure our support reaches the growing number of families who need us.

The key responsibilities of this role are:

• Overall accountability for the service provided to the bereaved military community.
• Leading, and working closely with, the Head of each delivery Programme to ensure all activities are impactful and meeting the needs of our community.
• Mapping and maintaining the full beneficiary journey across all programmes and cohorts (CYP and adult).
• Developing our first adult focused services and building them in line with the charity’s long-term vision to be supporting more than 25k bereaved people by 2035.
• Being the link between our service delivery and both internal and external technology partners to ensure our systems match, and meet the needs of, our processes.
• Alongside our Operations Team, lead the scoping of a full future CRM (Salesforce) rebuild and related beneficiary tech interfaces such as websites, future app development etc.
• Oversee the design of a 2026 ‘light’ CRM phase to support individual adult service delivery.
• Ensure that lived experience remains at the heart of our services.
• Accountability for Safeguarding within the organisation.
• Support Programme Leads (e.g. Heads of START, SMILES, SUPPORT), providing direction and support as well as ensuring clarity of ownership and goals.
• Create a strong, empowering culture within the service (Families) team, aligned with The Scotty’s Way and shared leadership philosophy.
• Work with our Head of People to oversee service recruitment and onboarding.

Quality, Measurement & Improvement

• Define and embed service-level Success Measures (KPIs) across all activities ensuring we know what success looks like for all our activities.
• Collaborate with the Head of Research & Impact to ensure data collection is usable and meaningful.

External Partnerships & Collaborations

• Proactively develop senior-level partnerships with other military and bereavement charities, Armed Forces support organisations, and relevant service providers and stakeholders.
• Explore and propose strategic collaborations where they strengthen the support we offer to families.
• Ensure the new START (single point of contact) Programme becomes an active network-builder in the space.
• Represent Scotty’s externally at events, conferences, meetings etc within the sector.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as a key link to Outreach and Fundraising — providing insight and service stories to fuel content.
• Work with the Ops team to align delivery processes with systems, IT, and compliance.
• Support bid development and reporting for funders by sharing service insight and outcomes.

The 30-day goals for this role are:

• Build a deep understanding of Scotty’s mission, our audience, the services we provide, and strategic direction.
• Spending time with the Families Team and understanding everyone’s role within the charity.
• Understands the ‘as-is’ current situation for the charity’s service delivery.
• Start to document gaps, delivery inconsistencies, opportunities, risks etc.
• Understand the landscape we operate in, particularly the military and bereavement charitable environment.
• Fully align with the operating rhythm of the charity, leading team meetings, holding 1:1s, ownership of relevant OKRs, etc.

The 60-day goals for this role are:

• Has met with counterparts at key partner organisations.
• Has highlighted key organisations not currently partnered with to meet.
• Created a stakeholder holder engagement map for our service delivery.
• Visually mapped existing beneficiary journeys across our four Programmes.
• Began work (with Ops) on requirements for initial-phase CRM for adult services.
• Fully aligned plans and goals with existing Programme Heads, incoming Head of START Programme, and incoming Head of Research & Impact.
• Held one in-person session with Families team.

The 90-day goals for this role are:

• Visually mapped year one of adult services plus any proposed changes to existing services to create a final 2026/27 service ‘to-be’.
• Planned the launch of our new START navigating entitlements casework Programme
• Development underway of ‘Light’ CRM to launch adult services having supplied detailed brief.
• Taken full accountability for the success of our Family Programmes and associated impact.
• Attended 2-3 sector group meetings representing Scotty’s solo.
• Developed a stakeholder holder engagement plan with Head of PR & Comms.

About You

Must-Have

Senior experience in service delivery, operations, or programme leadership

Strong skills in team leadership and service system design

Ability to turn strategy into operational structure and rhythm

Confident working cross-functionally and building external partnerships

Nice-to-Have

Experience working with or supporting Armed Forces families

Familiarity with CRM system scoping and procurement

Experience launching new services or scaling delivery teams

Background in bereavement or mental health support

Additional Information

• The role may require occasional evening or weekend work
• Enhanced DBS check required
• Travel will be required to events and team training days

The Scotty’s Way

At Scotty’s, our personal performance is only 50% of what success looks like. Our culture is equally important. When you join our team, you sign up to The Scotty’s Way, rooted in our four core values:

• Families Come First
• Everyone a Supporter, Every Supporter a VIP
• Love What You Do
• Remember, Every Day

Our values are further supported by our four non-negotiable behaviours of Show Respect, Speak Up, Take Ownership and Actively Collaborate. We are looking for an individual who embodies these values and behaviours.

To Apply:

Please submit your CV, along with a covering letter detailing your experience and what excites you about this role, to: [e-mail] . Please ensure you clearly annotate which role you are applying for in the email title. Closing date: Friday 16 January. Due to resource and time constraints, we are unfortunately unable to provide feedback for every application received and will only contact candidates shortlisted for interview.

Thank you for your interest in joining our team, we are an equal opportunities employer, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where all employees are treated with respect and given equal opportunities for employment and advancement.

We do not discriminate based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or any other protected characteristic.

We encourage all qualified individuals to apply for employment within our charity, and we provide a fair and inclusive recruitment process for all candidates.