to think at last something has exposed this scandal

[Crumbledwalnuts]

massive amounts paid to charity executives

it's almost a scam

Oblomov participated in Once you get your letters and oversee it from start to finish you will realise the significant difference, linked to the segregation of responsibilities between trustees and employees.

But actually you were NOT one of the twonks to whom I was referring

I did. From start to finish. I preped the accounts. I was the senior in the audit, with an audit manager above me. I saw it right through to the end. Preping things, for the Partner to meet client.

Once you get your letters?

Once you get your letters? the lovely ones that go after your name and come with a pay rise and the freedom to go self employed later

Yes. The ones I never got. The finals I never passed.

Oh dear, Crumbled

Your DH has "probably seen a little more of life" than another poster and "has seen bigger charities at work in disaster zones".

But yet he's only just found out that top executives in charities are on over £100k.

If he gets much sharper he'll cut himself.

Oh and YABVU.

lesMiss I assure you, the Charity Commission (not charities commission) is never, ever, wilfully toothless.

for a start there are not enough well paid jobs in the private sector to absorb all those people, and particularly for public sector employees, their skills are FAR less coveted than they think

Maybe you're right. But I moved from public sector to charity to private sector, and found it very easy to get a job - the first one I applied for actually. Starting salary was more than double what I had been on previously, and the hugely improved benefits package was an added bonus. I know plenty of people who have made the same sort of transition, and they're all better off as a result.

I worked much harder in the voluntary sector, doing long hours with few resources. My working environment now is infinitely better, but I miss the ethos of the charity that I worked for, and I loved doing a job that I really cared about. One day, when I can afford it, I will go back to the voluntary sector. For the time being, I have a mortgage to pay.

Shelleyboobs: why? He's always been more interested in the work they do. He wants to support the work they do. Perhaps he is someone who always looks for the best and wants to believe the best - he's certainly not as cynical as me, and has never been interested in the financial set up of charities. But when he saw some charities failing in the field, he stopped his donations there as well.

I'm sure, in fact I know, that there are many mumsnetters who've seen UN "relief" work and peacekeeping work. A lot of UN work is a job creation scheme for ex-public sector workers, ministers and journalists, who find excuses to employ ex-colleagues in non-jobs.

ministers I mean civil service

or are simply incapable of working in the private sector

Utter cock. As with all sectors, some people are great, some are average and some are shit. And people move from the charity sector and vice versa all the time.

Crumbled no-one is saying that all charities are fantastic, especially some of us who've worked in the sector. I would never, ever give a penny to the UN though.

Yes - I think bill Gates' billion was a massive waste of money

This thread has some really offensive comments on it, which I take personally. Some people seem to think that I and my charity employee colleagues are virtually thieves, out to defraud the public.

Hiding this thread now.

sunshine
the UN would not take your money : they only take money from government subscribers
or do you mean Unicef or Unesco

catmint
put away the thin skin and rationalise

I agree catmint. It's really annoying to hear charities so vilified - as with any other organisation which are run by people, there are the good, the bad and the ugly.

You're right Talkin I meant Unicef. I briefly worked for a development charity and didn't like what I heard about them.

The charity sector is just like the private sector. There are some very good people, some average people and some bad people. There are empire builders and trail blazers, nodding dogs and game changers. In my opinion, transparency is pretty good amongst charities of any size in the Uk and as I said above, donors need to do their homework. Re effectiveness, not all initiatives will work and that's fine. The important thing is that the charity self-evaluates so that they know this is the case. Re accounting law as it concerns charities, I don't think there are significant differences to for-profit entities.

The man I mentioned earlier who was the husband of a friend of my parents ran a business into the ground. Noone would hire him for a similar role at that level. He then tried his hand at consulting and doing public speech work (he was a very 'oxbridge' type). That didn't work out. So then he founded some charity 'dedicated' to saving wildlife (despite showing no interest in that prior but since he lived in the mountains, thought it would seem authentic), paid himself an $80,000 Australian annual salary as CEO of the charity (this was a good fifteen years ago) and successfully managed to recruit poor, well meaning mugs as his volunteer telesales people. He had them working long shifts for some nominal amount. He'd always talk someone else into it if they quit. He even tried to recruit my mum but, funnily enough, she declined. Every time my parents bumped into him, he would bignote himself, sigh sadly that he could be making far more in the private sector but that it was such a worthy cause. He was what we call in Australia .. a knob. His wife was lovely and long-suffering though (and by far the more intelligent of the two).

How are you judging that "their organisations' performances are going down" Lazyjaney

Reducing income, staff being sacked, charities going out of business, increasing customer complaints, reducing donor numbers, increasing lack of trust, major criticism of activities in location eg Haiti, reducing % of money getting to end target, top dogs paying themselves more, increasing gaps between average and top salaries....that's performance going down in my book.

The number of Charities has jumped from a few tens of thousands in the 1960s to over 150,000 today, but the growth in number of disasters, and causes needing sorting etc over the same period has been nothing like that. The only thing with similar growth is in the number of MBAs moving in to run them. It's an industry now, like any other, it is now glutted with capacity and we are seeing the same things happening as in every other industry in the same state.

I saw that lazeyjaney had come back to the thread, and I wondered if she was going to acknowledge that she had been wrong to say it was "bullshit" that charities are audited

No, I said it was bullshit that they were audited like companies. I note that in June 2012 the Hodgson report called for more transparency in their reporting. A bunch of in-industry people on here saying everything is rosy points to a problem, not a solution IMO.

Lazy I do agree that the sector is very bloated - unlike the private sector, where there is possibly too much consolidation, in the charity sector, there is not enough, and this results in a lot of duplication/ inefficiency. There is also a lot of "band aid" work, whereby the symptoms are alleviated but the problem doesnt get solved, so in 10 years time, the charity is alleviating the symptoms of the next generation of people with the same problem.

However, personally I see the professionalisation of the top management level as a potential solution to these issues, because these people tend to bring business principles. In my experience, CEO's who are "cause" people and came up through the ranks are much more resistant to merging with other similar organisations that people who come from the outside and can view things more dispassionately.

Also, remember that in the 1960s a lot of "charities" just weren't registered, so you can't really compare like with like plus the church did a lot more.

RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief do you mind me asking what you do? You always seem to talk a lot of financial sense.

Lazy who said everything was rosy? I pointed out that charities are audited, but I'm not naive enough to say that charities are perfect. You must have missed my point above where I said that, of the four charities I've worked for, I would only ever donate to one of them because of what I saw and experienced when I was there.

I'm all for transparency. Some charities (including some huge names) are, frankly, very opaque about what they do. And some charities are utter bollocks, with poor management practices, poorly thought out charitable activities and who treat their staff abominably (a bit of a theme IME). And there are way, way too many charities - this country does not need 180k+.

Thanks Richman for a considered post. I agree about professionalising charity management.

Four That's very kind - I'm a chartered accountant by training, but now I work as a grant officer for a charitable foundation (i.e. we have money and we use it to make grants to charities). Our grants are what you would call restricted grants, so charities have to make a proposal for a specific project and have to quantify the expected benefits of that project to us. Assuming it meets our basic criteria, we then decide if it's a good use of our funds/ an efficient way of solving the problem, and if so, we'll make them a grant. It's a very interesting job, but difficult because there are no perfect solutions to most social/ education/health problems and actually, money isn't always really the best way to solve the issue. I just have to try to decide if the impact justifies the expense.

Ahhh very interesting! I'm a trustee of a well known charity! I may have sucked up to you in the past!

Even the C Comm chairman says it threatens to bring the field into disrepute. I think this is rather a "charities = good whatever" knee jerk reaction here. More news today about bonuses.

Even the C Comm chairman
yeah, the guy on £50 k for 2 days a week : like he'd know how the real world works