Getting involved - Role specifications

Executive Officers

There will be six executive officers. One of these will be the General Secretary, the Treasurer, the Communications Officer and three Assistant General Secretary’s. Together, they will form the executive arm of the National Executive. This means that it is they who will be responsible for the day to day running and operations of the PDA Union. These operations will fall into two categories;

1. The day to day running of the union office.

   This will include operational matters like ensuring that the union office has an appropriate physical location which is properly staffed and that its operation complies with the relevant employment and Health and Safety legislation. Ensuring that all necessary materials (e.g. office equipment, stationery etc) and services (e.g. telephony, IT and access to relevant legal/other support) is available. The executive will also ensure that all proper governance issues are observed (e.g. the operation of PAYE, accounting procedures and any specific constitutional requirements such as the organisation of an Annual General Meeting). It will also be the role of the national executive to provide operational support to the five management groups.

2. The development of the national PDA Union strategy.

   With the involvement of the membership via the management groups and their representatives, a proactive PDA Union policy strategy will be agreed and prioritized. It will be the role of the Executive Officers to drive these policies, usually with the direct involvement of the Management Group Representatives, for the benefit of the membership. In this respect, the National Executive Officers will decide how best to apply the resources of the PDA Union so as ensure that the appropriate consultations and negotiations with third party organizations e.g. employers, the government and others occur so as to achieve these aims.

It is anticipated that the national executive activities will be primarily based at the offices of the PDA Union.

Management Group members

There will be five distinct management groups; community employee, hospital employee, locum, primary care and student/pre-reg. The members will be able to elect representatives to sit on the membership group committee, members of that committee will then choose from amongst themselves as to who should be their official representative to the national executive.

The management groups will be primarily responsible for developing policy which is to the benefit of the members of their distinct management group. They will also be responsible for ensuring that the appropriate levels of consultation and communications with the membership occurs. This could be done in a variety of ways such as the organisation of membership activity such as surveys, newsletters, focus group meetings or even via larger scale events such as conferences.

Once the management groups have developed their policies, they will feed these into the national executive via their chosen management group representative.

Subsequently, the management group will work with the national executive wherever necessary so as to actively pursue the policies of its constituent members.

Person specification.

Any member of the PDA Union can stand for any of the positions described. However, it is worth noting that the executive officers and in particular the position of the General Secretary and Assistant General Secretary will have a much greater involvement in the day to day affairs of the union and will need to give a much greater time commitment. The activity levels of the membership groups will be determined by the membership group committee’s themselves however, it is likely that membership group members will need to commit to at least one day per month spent on PDA Union activity.