to think at last something has exposed this scandal

[Crumbledwalnuts]

massive amounts paid to charity executives

it's almost a scam

" is what seems to drive the sniping "

no, not jealousy, but concern that if someone is so committed then is the salary so important to them, or could some portion of it be better put towards the aims of the charity. It is partly one of seeing the top people paying themselves significantly more than the minions, yet it not being a private sector business in name, but looking that way when there is an attempt to justify major sums of money in salary as being "needed to get the best talent".

Bit like the BBC - in days gone by, there were people proud to work for the BBC even if the pay was carp, but it went the other way, until we recently had scandals over a 98m digital project that could have been pulled much sooner and saved money, or millions paid out as golden handshakes when there was no justification or contractual reason for it, but big money had become part of the "culture" of the BBC. Seems it is likely a similar "culture" exists at some levels in the top 20,000 charities...

To the person who wrote "My phone doesn't want me to go beyond page 20" - might be worth switching from a phone - not just because of that, but because the auto-correct gets in the way so much (had difficulty understanding bits of your post).

Watch this TED talk:

www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html

We want people who run charities to be paid well, what if they were the most highly paid jobs we had? Imagine what that would do for a charity. Attract the top minds to doing such important work.

Charitocrats.....perfect definition.

All you need to know is their salaries are going up as their organisations' performances are going down to know there is something wrong.

Nothing wrong or surprising to me that people running charities are getting high salaries. I was bit surprised at how much, admittedly, and if they are nor doing a great job that needs to be dealt with. In principle though of course charities with budgets of millions need the right people to run them. Youcan't run an enormous charity on volunteers alone!

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

Most charity employees earn a fraction of what they could earn in other organisations. I should know, my salary doubled overnight when I left the voluntary sector. I also gained a pension plan, to which I hadn't had access previously, and I work far fewer hours now than I did previously because we never had enough staff at the charity to do what was required. Also, when I was working for a charity, I often spent my own money on work-related stuff, now I just claim expenses.

Some of the top execs probably are overpaid, but the sane could be said of top people in both the public and the private sectors. At the end of the day, charities pay whatever it costs to get the right people in post. Suggesting a 10% cut to their wages is silly, as most of them have probably made financial compromises already.

The charity I manage s an income of under £100,000 a year. We work with over 2000 people year and deal with over 300 other charities. there are 4 of us, p/t. If we were to close, Mr Cameron would be exceptionally upset, but our funding wen down 19 this year. I have suddenly become exceptionally good at fundraising applications - which is not what I went into the job for. Tbh, I would snap up a Charity CEO post for £50-60K if there were any outside London!

I'll cut my salary by 10% if the state cuts living expenses for all charity workers by 10%.

The fact that I - along with most of the people who work for charities - have already taken a 50-75% pay cut by choosing to work for a charity in the first place seems to pass a lot of people by. I could earn three times what I do right now, simply by doing my job in the private sector, so asking me to earn even less is something I can't countenance.

I could earn three times what I do right now, simply by doing my job in the private sector
I love it when people say that.
It is 99.9% of the time utter bilge
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.

private sector salaries started freezing several years before public and third - like in about 2006

"It is 99.9% of the time utter bilge
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."

I'm an accountant. Fully qualified with twenty years of experience in both the private and public sector. So yes, I could quite easily triple my salary without much hassle whatsoever.

People seem to think that the only people who work for charities are relatively unskilled, or are simply incapable of working in the private sector. It's very far from true, in my experience. Now, the civil service, on the other hand, well ...

Hatie
that is why I said 99.9% (we never say accurate, we say true and fair after all )

or are simply incapable of working in the private sector

exactly HatieKopins

I worked in the Insurance industry for 15 years prior to working for a charity. I was made redundant in 2007 after 11yrs because of the recession hitting charities and moved into the Motor trade. I dont think you could get two more different industries if you tried. They all require the same basic accounting skills

OK, so us CCAB are part of the 0.1% - I quite like that!!
THen again, many CIPFAs 'lack transferrable skills'

The OP said its almost a scam and actually I think she is right.

Charities benefit from extremely favourable tax regimes and accountability, in that their directors are not subject to the restrictions imposed by the legal duty of fiduciary duties on directors of companies. The report also discusses wage increases for CEs way in excess of the rate of inflation or RPI yet corresponding to decreased revenue. And charities are well known for underpaying more junior staff, simply because "they are charities". The Charities Commission is often wilfully toothless and the charities sector in the UK is running out of control.

How many of these CEs have actually proved themselves in running a successful medium sized business, as opposed to being rewarded by a relatively poor performance and then moving on?

No wonder the UK economy is in such a poor state.

As a funder I'd give this advice: view donations to charity as an investment in society rather than a gift and on that basis do your homework- pull the accounts and read them. Look at the overheads and the fundraising costs ( that's the real scandal IMO). Read the annual report. Compare their work with other charities in the sector and decide which one to support. All that info is there for you. If you don't like how much the chief exec is getting paid, don't donate to them. It's that simple.

My dsis works for a charitable foundation - she works hard supporting the work of the charity and I don't see why she shouldn't earn a decent wage for that.

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, and that the auditors who have posted on here saying that they audit charities' accounts might have shown her she was mistaken. How foolish of me.

LesMiss
in that their directors are not subject to the restrictions imposed by the legal duty of fiduciary duties on directors of companies
directors : charities that are not companies do not have directors, they have trustees who have exactly that duty
charities that are companies are subject to exactly the same legal safeguards as any other company

I have been both a charity trustee and am an independent examiner (like auditor for small charities)

extremely favourable tax regimes
Yeah right. Partial Exemption is just wonderful

Ach, CIPFAs. CIMA all the way for me.

I'm CIMA! (waves at Hatie)

I did ACCA .... ruled out CIPFA as no tax and (when I did it) CIMA as no audit

I started doing ACCA, but it was ALL auditing, and I knew I didn't want to work in practice, hence CIMA. After years of helping multinationals ruin the planet, it was time to give back, ergo charity work.

It really grinds my gears when people think I'm only doing it because I'm too shit to work anywhere else, when in fact, the only reason I'm good at it is because I spent years learning how businesses work, and can help charities make the most of their finances.

Not all charities are shit, and not all charity workers are incompetent. Charities are not out to defraud donors- well, most of them aren't, anyway. But you should always check that any charity you donate to is an actual charity, if you're worried, as some are just organisations with charitable aims. A world of difference.

Same reason I only do

• small businesses
• charities
• small local authority bodies

and a fair bit of pro bono work

TalkinPeace :
"Most charities are NOT companies
and the audit requirements of teh SORP are not the same as the company ones - so there are double checks

astounding how ill informed many of the snipers are !"

What do you mean?

I said: "Accounting for charities and the not-for-profit sector is a specialist area. But, the base principals are very much the same, as for auditing any other company."

I still maintain that. As a junior, I have participated in many audits, of many companies, and a few charities. And the basic principals are universal.