NCVO review of mermaids

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Mermaids brought in NCVO (national council of voluntary organisations) to do a review

I’ve only had a chance to scan quickly but there’s some really basic stuff that hasn’t been going on eg trustee job roles, trustee induction. that sort of stuff usually gets you chucked out at stage 1 with funders like the lottery. Clearly mermaids were subject to a different set of criteria than other charities

It also astonishingly says mermaids board has high skill levels in safeguarding and risk management 😳

https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/high-trustee-turnover-at-mermaids-has-weakened-confidence-says-ncvo-review.html

How cosy.

Correction - her tweets were in 2021.

The Charities Commission emailed the complainants last week to request permission to send the details of their complaints to Mermaids. No timescales for conclusion of the investigation are being given.

@rogdmum Thank you for the update.

Yeah this Sarah Vibert, who has also signed up NCVO to the 'Stand With Trans' charity CEOs pledge. So very neutral (credit to the ever diligent KF for clocking this)

https://twitter.com/LGBTConsortium/status/1614221931389095936

Five separate safeguarding disasters that I can think of - any one of which would have likely blown apart a less teflon category group - and they identify as high level skills in safeguarding and risk management.

Yeah.

And I identify as believing them.

Thanks for sharing this, looking forward to reading the report!

'Individuals were asked to score performance out of 10, with 10 being a level of mastery beyond where many boards get to and being a role model for other organisations and 1 being that the board is not functioning and is unaware of risk'

So the whole thing is based on their own subjective feels about how well they're doing?

'... there is an element of subjectivity to the exercise,'

No shit.

Oh, wait, they also did a skills audit:

'This exercise is based on a self-declaration and as such has some limitation'

Oh.

Still an interim CEO after 10 months then? Hmm.

Sarah Vibert opining about how vital it is for all charities to be inclusive of trans people. What, even the Cats' Protection League?

Marking their own homework AGAIN?!

There does seem to be a worrying lack of neutrality with the CEO of the NCVO weighing in on a political battle that Mermaids chose to engage in (and lose) with the LGB Alliance.
And then her organisation fails to challenge self identified high level scores of management & safeguarding in the face of the scandals already mentioned upthread??

Well, they're writing out their homework and getting a pal to mark it, it seems.

'Throughout this review, a trend emerged around transparency and communications. We raise this particularly as there was a significant difference in view between the staff we spoke to and the trustees'

'there is clear evidence of historic communications challenges'

'Part of leading an organisation like Mermaids is making objective decisions about topics which are likely to be close to an inherent aspect of trustees’ identity or the identity of those they are close to'

'Ultimately having trustees who are personally invested is of huge benefit to Mermaids as an organisation, and that investment should not be compromised in favour of objectivity.'

Ultimately having trustees who are personally invested is of huge benefit to Mermaids as an organisation, and that investment should not be compromised in favour of objectivity.

This is surely the wrong way round?

It should be:

Ultimately having trustees who are personally invested is of huge benefit to Mermaids as an organisation, but that investment should not compromise objectivity.

I dunno, Jane, I just copy and pasted. That's what it says!

...batshit.

This is more special pleading that anything linked to the word trans should be immediately exempted from normal standards, safeguards, common sense and ethics.

Which is how they managed all these safeguarding disasters in the first place. The biggest one being, I would suggest, that they do not appear able to recognise or understand that any one of these disasters is a safeguarding disaster, or matters, or means that they are doing anything wrong. Capacity is becoming a front and centre very major issue. And arguing that this doesn't matter, because trans, is just piling more concerning inability on top of inability.

Yes, the report considers that leaders should be objective, then abandons that idea because trans.

ZombieBeryl · Yesterday 18:32

Sarah Vibert (she/her) joined NCVO in 2020 and became their CEO in 2022. In 2019 she posted these critical tweets about LGB Alliance and recommended Mermaids as a charity.

There has clearly been a gross and obvious conflict of interest here, she should be unbiased, yet she is clearly highly partial on the trans subject. Is there any way for the review to be undertaken again?

You'd think, wouldn't you?!

'This exercise is based on a self-declaration and as such has some limitation'

Limitation? To identifying as being whatever you feel you are? That's not the Mermaids way!

Belinda Bell: "She said it operated in “a uniquely hostile external environment, where our work is under ever increasing scrutiny”.

... so? You don't think people should be able to scrutinise what a charity for vulnerable children does? These people cannot be for real.

"Increasing" from zero scrutiny too, by the looks of things, when they appointed the extremely dodgy Trustee who had written at length about children and sexual fantasies and attended events for paedophiles. And then to say such scrutiny is uniquely hostile?

Quite. Scrutiny is part of providing services of this kind and any work with children, and wanting to avoid it or having a problem with this is a red flag in itself as it's about the organisation putting their own needs in front of the children's and of their desire for ethical, proper best practice. It has received a lot of funding, including tax payer funding: accountability and adherence to the law, and to standard ethical policies of safeguarding and accountability were an expectation within this and they failed. Majorly.

'Hostile' - they mean not unconditionally enabling, and people pointing out and having big concerns about five massive safeguarding disasters through really bad practice and failure to follow policies and guidance that a local village playgroup do on a daily basis. This is already an organisation operating on an extremist, biased belief that regards other beliefs or impartiality as an unacceptable threat. This is all about the feels of the staff and apparently no capacity for responsibility beyond this.

The more I read, the more concerned I am about this organisation having access to kids at all, and the angrier I am that the government have not only supported and handed them funding without proper safeguards but are not now demanding accountability.

A charity working in an area like this should surely welcome scrutiny?

It does seem to be news to many TRAs that there are actually rules about how registered charities operate.

Green didn't start Mermaids, she turned to them for help with her child. Prior to her involvement Mermaids was much closer to Bayswater group in terms of its policies and ideology - ie most kids grow out of it, watchful waiting.

Her rise up the ranks later reflected the path she chose to take for her child, heavily influenced by Dr Norman Spack, the monster who 'salivates' at the thought of sex change procedures on minors.