Former Scope chief executive Jon Sparkes is returning to the voluntary sector in the post of chief operating officer at Unicef UK.

His remit will cover delivery of the internal culture and strategic alignment, and his appointment aims to allow Unicef CEO David Bull to focus more on the external agenda and organisational strategy.

Sparkes, a highly-experienced HR practitioner, will join the children’s charity in January 2012 from the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, a post he has held for the past year. Before that he spent most of the previous year as director of workforce for NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly.

Sparkes joined Scope in 2004 as executive director for human resources and became its acting chief executive in June 2006.  He took on the job permanently in January 2007 and stayed for three years.

From 2008 until 2010 Sparkes was alsovice president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Unicef’s latest accounts demonstrate that the charity has had some success at growing its voluntary income recently, despite the economic downturn. In the year to 31 December 2010, overall income rose to £80.8m, mainly off the back of a 41 per cent jump in voluntary donations.