New CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis

[TheFleegleHasLanded]

I struggled to even come up with a title for this thread as I am so enraged I know I will get deleted and even banned if I say what I really think.

twitter.com/EdinRapeCrisis/status/1389112490215288832?s=20

@HerewardTheWoke

Part of my job is to do with scrutinising and strengthening corporate governance and even for a smallish charity that board is very seriously underpowered, let alone for one delivering a complex service like this.

According to the website, they are mostly recent graduates (or in a couple of cases currently undergraduates!), and only one member has a long-standing career in something that might be relevant to the organisation (HR - which is fine, although it begs the question why they don't know how to operate single sex exceptions properly).

I'd expect an organisation like this to have at least one board member with a legal background, ideally family and/or criminal law, and one with substantial experience in financial management. Then I would want to see other members with long-standing experience in child protection, safeguarding, VAWG sector, local government, public health or other social policy fields, and fundraising. Not people who graduated within the last few years and have spent a few months in another country ... Jesus fucking Christ

I feel genuinely concerned for the board members. They are totally out of their depth for the level of personal liability they have taken on. No wonder they are getting walked all over.

Thanks for that analysis.

This is worrying. Women will be relying on that service. (And from what I can tell, young people, too?).

They deserve better.

I'm hoping for the sake of the young women on the board that they have been advised properly - and no one interested in rape support can possibly be unaware that MW is a transwoman

@Unsure33

Unclear. Trustees (at least in England and Wales, not sure about Scotland) are responsible for preparing accounts annually, and they probably engage an accountant to do an annual independent audit or examination of accounts, which is fine.

But most charities, ideally, would have someone on the board (and who is therefore legally responsible for the charity and independent of the management) who is qualified in audit and assurance and can challenge and hold the management team to account on financial management and strategy, and respond to any auditor concerns.

Without that, you are missing one of the lines of defence against financial mismanagement. One of the (many) problems Kids Company had, for example, was that auditors' warnings on cash flow were ignored, which is down to the trustees.

I'm not sure how trustees are normally appointed - does anyone know?
If the appointments are advertised, do they normally specify certain criteria e.g expertise in safeguarding, finance, law?
Who makes the decision?

www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-forced-17855231

Gender neutral toilets in their centre.

I am a trustee for a small charity and we have a board member who is an audit specialist which helps us hugely in ensuring we act within the legal framework. We also have discussions about the decisions made and there's no way a new CEO would be appointed without a lot of scrutiny

'struggling with unprecedented demand' - and this was pre covid

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-struggling-unprecedented-demand-300-victims-wait-year-support-1330400

People usually apply to be a trustee and then there is an interview to look at what you might bring to the board. You also have to be briefed to ensure you understand the implications of your role etc

It says in the job advert that this role is funded by the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board. I wonder what their board members think of a) this appointment b) the recruitment process failing to adhere to its own parameters and c) the completely inappropriate and inexperienced board of ERCC www.edinburghhsc.scot/the-ijb/eijb-board-members/

@PlanDeRaccordement

It’s not normal at all. The more I think about this, the more I worry that ERCC is a shell for activists to get donations supposedly to help rape victims, but then really spend it on activism (and their salaries).

Has anyone been to a ERCC location? Or known anyone who has used their services? Do they actually do what they say they do?

There is quite a bit of information in their latest accounts, which you can access here:

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC291742/filing-history

I’ve skimmed really quickly and it all looks in order to me. I may take a closer look at some point.

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC291742/officers

Ok, just seen Hereward’s post. Bit frightening.

cross post, Leaf, sorry!

Has anyone seen any opinion about whether they've done anything that would fall foul of the Equality Act? I think it's an odd situation that feels wrong but might actually not be covered, but I don't really know.

Yes, adverts for trustees often ask for specific kinds of experience, depending on what the board thinks their needs are.

To be clear, there is no reason to think there is any kind of financial mismanagement - there is no suggestion of that. But I don't think the current crop of trustees have the right background to deal with it if it arose - their inexperience is leaving them a bit exposed I think.

Boards make appointments in different ways, but you would normally expect them to do some sort of skills audit to identify gaps, and include some of the things people have already mentioned in recruitment. I'd want to see practical experience of charity management and expertise of the SV/DV field as well as finance, legal, HR, marketing, fundraising, public sector commissioning etc.

Six new directors and a secretary were appointed April 2021. There are only nine members of the board.

The chair of the Edinburgh Joint Integration Board that is funding this position is on Twitter here twitter.com/ehealthangus?s=21

Long time worker in the voluntary sector. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to be trustees. It’s a lot of responsibility & time especially when staff, buildings, services & relatively large amounts of money are involved

Trustee roles are advertised but they’re competing with thousands of other volunteer roles most of which are considerably easier.What this leads to in practice is that existing trustees recruit new trustees from within their own existing circles resulting in Board ‘group think’. I’ve worked with boards where this is the case - any new trustees from outside the circle either leave quickly or assimilate the prevailing culture. This certainly looks like a case of that.

she joins us at an exciting time

A couple of people on Twitter commented on this. It's completely tone deaf.

Business start ups, business mergers, new arts projects, new leisure facilities etc. etc can legitimately be launched in "exciting times". The appointment of a new CEO to a rape crisis definitely cannot.

Just disgraceful. It’s intentional and political. This is the top prize for the trans community. A job advertised specifically for women under the equality act is given to a trans woman.

It’s also so racist to say BME women. They are women. They are in the sex category of women.

Spot on @HerewardTheWoke.

I'm a charity trustee in Scotland and am shocked by the make up of this board. The seem like vanity posts to me. Given what I know of my role and board, experience in key areas is vital, otherwise the board is toothless and easily manipulated if the CEO is so inclined.

I think it is really important that people dont confuse the role of Trustees / MC members with those actually paid to do professional work and (eg rape crisis helplines) trained volunteers.

Recruiting Trustees may ask for experience of a particular fields, but this is where groups go wrong that an individual trustee then thinks that an area of work is one they control.

Any new trustees should get basic training on, for example:

• employment rights
• how to read audited accounts and budgets
• and probably most important the aims and objectives of the organisation

You may be called on as a trustee to be part of investigating employment grievances. Again this shouldn't be your personal opinion but how you weigh up the rights and wrongs of a case.

Preparing for MC meetings can be very time consuming for workers / volunteers as theoretically every agenda item should have a back ground paper which needs to reach MC members in time for them to read and if not form an opinion, come up with a list of questions to ask a relevant member of staff to clarify.

I wonder if the problem with the employment process for this job was because as it is the most senior post it wouldn't be possible for a member of staff to be part of the employment panel. But they could have asked a senior member of staff from another RCC to sit in.

And assuming they had an agreed process for doing the job interviews, they must also have agreed how points would be scored.

I dont doubt that somehow personal political believes fed into this. But it now seems to be that there isn't in fact that big a pool of properly qualified women to take on senior positions in women's groups. (I posted on another thread that Rape Crisis England has just appointed a new CEO and in the statement about her the word woman is not mentioned once!)

And, something we could all do, is take the time to become the member of a the MC of a local women's group.

re Rape Crisis England new appointment rapecrisis.org.uk/news/rcew-welcomes-new-ceo/

Somewhat different skill set there.