About East Lothian Foodbank (ELFB) & our Money Advice Service

ELFB provides food and emergency daily essentials to local people who are experiencing hardship in East Lothian.

As an independent Scottish charity, we are fortunate to also be part of a nationwide network of foodbanks, supported by Trussell, working together to ensure no one in the UK needs a food bank to survive.

In addition to emergency food, we also offer a money advice service for our service users to help them maximise income and benefit entitlement. Since October 2022, our money advice service has supported people out of hardship and achieved significant financial gains, of over half a million pounds.

About the Role

We are looking for the right person to join our team to support us with the continued success of our project. This is a fantastic opportunity for a motivated and positive individual to help people using our foodbank to access our money advice service. To achieve this, you will collaborate closely with our advice partners to ensure that our service continues to helpthose most in need of our support.

As a team player, you will provide essential support to the operations team by identifyingindividuals requiring financial assistance, co-ordinating referrals to our advice partners andmonitoring of advice service capacity. Additionally, to ensure we meet a standard 24hr response time of our referral processing, you will occasionally support our service coordinator to give people in crisis timely access to our support.

Key Responsibilities

The Project Support Assistant will:

• Support to identify individuals who are most likely to benefit from the service and promote the service to them
• Utilise existing tools and help people we support to implement personalised strategies to overcome challenges, by using SIGNAL
• Develop and maintain good working relationships with relevant organisations, to ensure they are aware of our money advice service and the wider role of East Lothian Foodbank
• Attend ad hoc forums and events
• Monitor ongoing engagement with our advice service
• Monitor effectiveness of the service on a quarterly basis, using data from our advice partner and provide timely data to funders
• Work with our advice partner to identify capacity that can facilitate wider access to the service
• Be the first line of support in our daily referrals service – especially during busy periods or in times of staff absence
• Undertake ad hoc administration duties to support with team projects
• Undertake other tasks to support the foodbank as directed by the Operations Manager and Foodbank Director

About you

To succeed in this role, you must have the following skills and experience:

• Experience of engaging with and supporting partnership work with other organisations
• Ability to work as part of a team and on own initiative
• Excellent communication skills
• Experience in handling difficult conversations
• Be empathetic and non-judgemental
• Full driving licence preferred
• A willingness to work flexible hours

Key Competencies

• Highly organised and self-motivated
• Adaptable and proactive
• Good IT skills – including google suite and office packages/excel
• Committed to the values and mission of East Lothian Foodbank

Benefits

• Accredited real Living Wage Employer offering competitive salary.
• Annual leave: 32 days including 9 bank holidays (pro rata).
• Pension: ELFB is a member of the NEST Pension Scheme. The successful candidate would be enrolled within the pension scheme 3 months from the joining date. Further information about Employer Pension obligations can be found at here.
• Employee assistance programme - the successful candidate will be enrolled into our assistance programme provided by Hospital Saturday Fund on completion of probation. This gives access to a range of employee welfare, mental health and financial support. Including money towards specific private health treatments and access to a range of discounts through Perk Box.
• Business travel: 45p per mile paid for business travel.
• Financial contribution to activities that support your health and wellbeing

An experienced adviser is required to improve the financial circumstances of the families supported by Hawthorn Children and Family Centre and Midlothian’s Family Wellbeing Service to improve the outcomes for the children.

The project will work with and receive referrals from Hawthorn Children and Family Centre and the Family Wellbeing Service team members. The worker will link with mental health projects, family support and Penicuik CAB’s specialist debt worker to develop a wraparound service to increase household income and improve the quality of life for the family.

Working closely with other project workers the post holder will provide awareness raising sessions with the Hawthorn Centre staff, Family Wellbeing team members and any other agencies, as appropriate.

Based at the Penicuik CAB, Hawthorn Children and Family Centre and working at any centres deemed appropriate, the worker will provide help and assistance with checking benefit entitlement, completing benefit applications and challenging benefit decisions. The work will also include income maximisation, budgeting advice, utilities and some assistance with debt issues (including housing debt).

A working knowledge and understanding of welfare benefits and good interpersonal skills are essential. The post holder will be responsible for developing and delivering the service to meet the needs of the families.

Looking for an opportunity to work for a flexible and family friendly organisation doing amazing work to support Scotland’s voluntary sector?

We’re looking for an experienced Technical Support Engineer to join our dynamic IT team. This is a key role in ensuring the smooth operation of systems and applications, providing expert support across networks, servers, cloud services, desktops, and more. You’ll also play a vital part in delivering our Managed IT service for the voluntary sector, offering remote and on-site support to our partners.

Your expertise and strong communication skills will be crucial in delivering technical assistance while maintaining a customer-focused approach that aligns with our values and service standards.

Join us and be part of a team committed to making a difference in the IT landscape of the voluntary sector.

Part time hours and other flexible working options, including working from home for part of the week, will be fully considered. We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet most of the criteria in the person specification. We share our interview questions in advance. If you want to have a chat about the job or our flexible working approach, get in touch with us at recruitment@scvo.scot

SCVO is the membership organisation for the voluntary sector in Scotland and our mission is to champion the role of voluntary sector organisations in building a flourishing society and support them to do work that has a positive impact.

About you

We’re looking for someone to join our team with a strong belief in equality, human rights and social justice. You will have an understanding of the experiences, strengths and challenges faced by refugees, people seeking asylum, and other New Scots communities, and the motivation to support the development of the New Scots Edinburgh Refugee Integration Strategy, working closely with key stakeholders and statutory partners.

You will also work with colleagues to produce responses to public consultations and policy proposals from statutory partners in partnership with key third sector stakeholders.

About us

EVOC (Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council) is a charity that was established in 1868. In July 2025, we published a new strategic plan to guide our work for the next five years.

Our purpose is to serve the needs of people and communities across Edinburgh by supporting our members and third sector organisations to be effective and drive the change they need.

We work in three areas - advocacy, capacity building and collaboration - underpinned by research and analysis to inform our work to support third sector organisations and the communities they serve.

EVOC is a living wage employer. We are committed to equality of opportunity, inclusion and diversity and welcome applications from members of all communities.

Benefits:

• 26 days of annual leave per year
• 10 public holidays (6 fixed and 4 floating) per year
• Pension (6% company contribution)
• 3 additional days leave between Christmas and New Year when the EVOC office closes
• A hybrid working approach
• All the equipment you need to work remotely