About Us

Fair Work First

Fair Work First is the Scottish Government’s policy for driving good quality and fair work in Scotland. Through this approach, the Scottish Government, and its public sector partners, ask organisations to describe how they are committed to progressing towards adopting and how they intend to continue embedding the seven Fair Work First elements:

appropriate channels for effective voice, such as trade union recognition
investment in workforce development
no inappropriate use of zero hours contracts
action to tackle the gender pay gap and create a more diverse and inclusive workplace; and,
providing fair pay for workers (for example, payment of the Real Living Wage).
offer flexible and family friendly working practices for all workers from day one of employment
oppose the use of fire and rehire practices

A-ND's commitment to Fair Work First

At Autism & Neurodiversity North Scotland (A-ND), we continually develop our practice, approach and services to meet the needs of the people we support, their families and wider networks, utilising individual staff abilities, skills, strengths and interests.

We support staff to develop and grow based on their individual and collective strengths, interests and learning styles. This starts at the beginning of staff onboarding with us, identifying through the interview process, unique learning styles and approaches that work to support individuals bring their best and full ‘self’ to work.

By continuing to develop our approach and services, we strive to ensure we create a respectful, safe and secure environment that creates opportunity for our people to develop, grow and thrive.

The Five Fair Work First Elements:

We believe and live our six organisational values at A-ND every day -

“We are Innovators”,
“We are Human Rights Led”,
“We are thought leaders”,
“We Value Relationships”,
“We are influencers”,
“We are passionate”

We are a proud Real Living Wage and Disability Confident Committed Employer, who promote and strive for diversity and inclusion throughout the organisation, at all levels and roles.

Our culture, supported by practice, policies and procedures, ensure our staff have a voice at work. We provide staff with regular support and supervision, monthly reflective practice sessions, team and organisational meetings to encourage and ensure the voice, views and experiences of our staff inform and shape the decisions made and actions taken at both service and organisation level.

Our staff are invited to quarterly ‘Have Your Say’ sessions with our CEO, informing wider organisational and strategic decisions and plans, feeding into our quarterly Board meetings and strategic direction and planning.

One of our six values is ‘we are human rights led’. We respect, value and promote diversity and inclusion in everything we do. We appreciate that people who have good intentions do make mis-takes – in the middle of mis & take, there is learning.

We work hard every day to ensure human rights are respected and upheld, regardless of role or involvement with A-ND, whether staff, someone we support or an external partner.

Our culture, environment and policies and procedures promote and ensure a human rights led approach from Whistleblowing and Safer Recruitment to Support and Supervision and Managing Absence and Wellbeing. Our practices support wellbeing, accountability and health and safety for all throughout and involved with A-ND.

Living our values through our everyday actions and practice, our Leadership Team are highly skilled and have extensive knowledge in autism and neurodiversity, the health and social care and third sector, enabling them to effectively support, mentor and coach our staff teams.

We are a fully transparent organisation & hold one another accountable for our everyday actions and behaviours. We recognise the Union.

We are a proud Real Living Wage and Disability Confident Committed Employer. At A-ND we value our people and do all we can to provide maximum security to our staff through our pay, benefits & conditions. All our staff have clear and transparent employment contracts in place that promote flexibility, wellbeing and work life balance.

We ensure and provide a clear & transparent 3-tier hourly rate or salary process and system for all our staff, with defined requirements and criteria for each role and level within A-ND, reviewed annually by our Senior Leadership Team and Board of Trustees.

When applying for funding or tender bids, A-ND commits to ensuring we request the best possible and secure terms and rates of pay for staff positions and roles required to provide the highest quality projects and services our community need and deserve.

Wherever we can, A-ND avoid offering zero-hour contracts and commit to ensuring we are transparent and open in our rates of pay, terms and conditions offered in recruitment and roles offered.

A-ND are committed to developing and working towards innovative ways to ensure fair work, notwithstanding commissioning, funding and budget constraints wherever possible.

We are a proud Real Living Wage and Disability Confident Committed Employer.

We respect human rights and do not insist that our people disclose disabilities, neurological differences or lived experience. Our staff collaborate and identify their unique learning style, strengths and any barriers should they chose at interview, with individual adjustments and supports required to support them be the best they can in their roles.

Through self-disclosure, we do know a minimum of over 30% of our staff team self-identify as having a disability, neurological difference or lived experience. We strive to create the best possible conditions and make required adaptations for all to thrive, regardless of diversity and unique abilities.

At A-ND we provide a variety of progression possibilities for staff to develop through formal and informal qualifications and training internally and externally, such as SVQ’s, train the trainer and continuous development opportunities with our partners at SCM, Triangle Consulting, SensationALL, Inspiring Scotland, Aberlour Childcare Trust and Scottish Autism to name but a few.

We have an extensive internal training program at A-ND, with a minimum of 10 days training offered equally to paid staff and volunteers irrespective of role or position every year.

We follow a fair and safe recruitment process in our approach to recruitment and selection process for both paid staff and volunteers.

We work with the people we support, our staff, partners and stakeholders to design and create roles specific to projects and services we recruit for. All vacancies are advertised internally and externally to support and encourage our staff team to apply for further development.

We strongly encourage staff to take responsibility and be accountable in making the right decisions for them individually and collectively within their roles for their professional development.

We ensure we have clear and transparent Objective and Key Results (OKR’s) set and communicated throughout A-ND, aligning with our organisational values, strategic pillars and that are filtered down from our Board of Trustees, CEO and Senior Management Team to our Leadership and Operational and Business Support teams. We believe that we all play an essential part individually and collectively in making and creating magic each and every day.

We foster a learning culture of “Mis-takes” rather than mistakes to ensure we capture any learning, transferring our learning into our practice.

We have flexible working approaches, outlined in our Flexible Working Policy, and enhanced annual leave as a key benefit for all our staff, ensuring appropriate rest breaks to aid, promote and support effective self-care, a healthy work-life balance, and positive health and wellbeing.

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Fair Work First