Development Officer

Community Transport Association

Hours
35 hours per week

About the Organisation

Community Transport Association is a UK member-based charity providing leadership, advocacy, training, advice, and operational support to transport-related charities, community groups and social enterprises in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We support and advocate on behalf of our members so they can deliver innovative and flexible transport solutions to achieve social change and remove transport barriers facing their communities.

At CTA, we are committed to supporting our members by providing leadership, advocacy, and a strong collective voice. To strengthen our impact and deepen our understanding of the diverse environments our members operate in, we have divided England into 11 regions. Each region is led by a dedicated CTA team member who works directly with local community transport providers and key stakeholders. Our regional structure aligns with the Sub-National Transport Bodies, ensuring we can effectively represent members' interests at the local, regional and national levels.

This role will lead work within the following regions:

• East Midlands
• East England
• South Central and
• London

Our team of development officers in England work collaboratively and are expected to support members when required across England and across the UK.

About the role

As a Development Officer, you will play a crucial role in ensuring our members receive outstanding support and development. You will lead our work in the East Midlands, East England and London, while working collaboratively with colleagues to support members across England and the wider UK. You will maintain regular two-way dialogue with members to promote engagement, gather insights and identify support needs. You will provide specialist advice on areas such as charity governance, funding, volunteer management and stakeholder engagement. You will also promote CTA’s training programme (MiDAS) and represent CTA at events, forums and conferences.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities Continued:

• Maintain regular two-way dialogue and contact with CTA members to:
  • Promote and improve engagement with CTA through events, consultations and projects.
  • Gather insights into their practices and performance for use in raising the profile of community transport and to inform how we can support them to develop and deliver their services.
  • Identify any current support and development needs they may have and, where possible, work with them to develop solutions to these needs, signposting to CTA and/or third-party services where appropriate
  • Support our members and other community groups to be successful in new and changing contexts so they can benefit from new opportunities and meet new needs as they emerge
  • Be involved in mapping the community transport sector in England with a focus on supporting the development of regional priorities and projects to address needs.
  • Support initiatives to establish new local services.
• Work with other Development Officers with CTA to ensure that advice enquiries from members are managed effectively and to the agreed standards, with high levels of customer satisfaction.
• Provide specialist advice and support to our members covering the following areas:
  • Charity governance;
  • Charity funding/fundraising and income generation methods;
  • Assessing, identifying and solving Organisational Development needs;
  • Volunteer recruitment, retention and management;
  • Consultation and stakeholder engagement;
  • Partnership and relationship mapping development;
  • Working with businesses including commercial partnerships.
• Promote the use of CTA’s national programme of quality assured education and training (MiDAS), to enhance driving and operator standards and the safer operation of community transport services.
• Find opportunities to attend and contribute to events, conferences and forums where groups of CTA members and/or other stakeholders are gathering to collect insights, identify any current support needs and promote our services. 
• Organise and contribute development input and content for national and regional learning and networking events and forums for CTA members and other relevant stakeholders that drive effectiveness and build personal and professional capability across the sector.
• Contribute to the production of digital tools and resources that support members’ development and build the capacity of community transport providers.
• Undertake any other duties and responsibilities commensurate with the post.

Stakeholder Responsibilities:

• Maintain regular contact with members in line with our agreed approach, standards and CRM system.
• Maintain regular contact with stakeholders from other organisations or sector bodies responsible for managing relationships with community transport in their area.
• Make contact with organisations exploring/who have set up new community transport operations to introduce them to CTA and the benefits of membership.
• Make contact with newly appointed managers and other key positions within member organisations to introduce them to CTA and the benefits of membership.
• Maintain contact with existing CTA members to support and encourage them to remain members of CTA. 

General Organisational Responsibilities:

• Values: Be an enthusiastic advocate for CTA’s values.
• Planning: Contribute to the development, implementation and delivery of CTA’s strategy and operational plans. Contribute to service evaluation and development by listening and feeding back membership data, stories and intelligence.
• Reporting: Ensure personal record-keeping and reporting is conducted consistently and to a high standard, including generating data for management reporting, saving resources and documents on SharePoint and communicating outcomes and progress to colleagues.
• Participation: Contribute to staff meetings, team meetings, and other meetings as required. Attend and contribute to the facilitation of CTA national events. Maintain own professional networks and promote CTA on a local and national level.
• Resources: Use the resources of the organisation effectively, including delivering your own activities within the agreed budget.
• Governance: Support good governance within CTA by providing relevant information for the Trustee Board and its sub-committees.
• Compliance: Take personal responsibility for ensuring your own work is compliant with relevant legislation, policies and good practice, including data protection and health and safety.

Skills, Competencies, Experience & Attributes

Experience & Qualifications:

• Working in, or with, community groups or charities to strengthen their services and performance.
• Working with public sector bodies and supporting cross-sector collaboration.
• Experience of at least one area of Organisational Development activity such as governance, strategy development, funding/fundraising, volunteer management, stakeholder engagement, and/or partnership development.
• Gathering data/information from stakeholders and using this to contribute to the development of policy, projects or services.
• Evidence of continual professional development.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Strong IT and digital skills including MS Office and digital communication tools.
• Able to demonstrate a good understanding of the issues affecting people and communities disadvantaged by a lack of accessible and inclusive transport.
• Excellent writing skills and ability to apply these in creating professional resources, guidance and toolkits.
• Ability to listen, analyse organisational challenges and provide advice or signpost to relevant services.
• Excellent interpersonal, relationship management and communication skills.
• Excellent organisational skills – the ability to work on own initiative and prioritise workload.
• Strong comprehension skills with the ability to identify key points and underlying questions.

Values & Attitude:

• A demonstrable commitment to our organisation’s values.
• Strong commitment to, and understanding of the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion.

Desirable:

• Working in or with the community transport sector and issues related to transport policy/services.
• Developing professional resources/toolkits to be used by stakeholders.
• Working within a membership and voluntary sector environment.
• Good working knowledge of the legal and governance framework in which public transport and community transport operate.
• Data and trend analysis and management information skills.
• Good attention to detail and able to produce work with a high-level of accuracy.
• Professional and positive attitude in managing working relationships.
• Positive attitude to your own personal accountability for achieving agreed targets and outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• Relevant qualification to the role, OD, governance, leadership development, etc.

Compensation & Benefits

• A defined contribution pension scheme including employer contributions of up to 5%.
• CTA contractual sick pay provides payment in addition to SSP after passing your probation period. Entitlement is first eight weeks at full pay, following eight weeks at half pay.
• Group Life Insurance cover, currently at three times your annual salary.
• 25 days’ annual leave, plus public holidays and additional days between Christmas and New Year. The annual entitlement increases one day per year until you reach the maximum of 29 days.
• A basic flexi-time and TOIL system.
• A flexible approach to work – we encourage and support different ways of working to achieve our overall objectives.

Working locations

• Home-based, with UK travel

How to apply

• Please send a personal statement of no more than two sides of A4 and an up-to-date CV to [email protected], explaining your motivation for applying and how you meet the essential requirements of the role.
• For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Caroline Whitney, England Director and Head of Membership Services, at [email protected].
• We will always acknowledge receipt of your application. We are not always able to provide feedback on applications that have not been shortlisted for interview.

Interviews

• Online interviews are week commencing 14th September 2026

Policies

We are dedicated to ensuring that our workforce reflects the diversity of the world and the communities we serve. We actively encourage applications from individuals regardless of their gender, age, country of origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or disability. As part of our commitment to fairness, all shortlisted candidates will receive the interview questions in advance, allowing those candidates the opportunity to prepare effectively.

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