Salary of Consumers’ Association chief falls to £462,000

The end of a controversial incentive plan meant Peter Vicary-Smith’s earnings fell by 15 per cent, say the latest accounts, but his basic pay rose and he received a £44k compensatory payment

The chief executive of the Consumers’ Association, the charity behind the Which? publications and brand, saw his salary fall by 15 per cent last year when a controversial bonus scheme came to an end.

The charity’s accounts for the year to 30 June 2017, which were published at Companies House this week, show that Peter Vicary-Smith’s pay fell from £490,000 in 2015/16 to £462,000 last year.

A long-term incentive plan bonus that earned Vicary-Smith an additional £125,000 on top of his basic salary in the 2015/16 financial year had been discontinued.

The LTIP was introduced to incentivise senior management to deliver long-term growth across Which?’s commercial business and meant that six-figure bonuses were paid to members of Which?’s executive team.

But the LTIP scheme was scrapped earlier this year after a review of executive remuneration within the organisation and a number of years of controversy about pay at the organisation.

A Third Sector investigation last year showed bonuses worth a total of £2.24m were set aside by the organisation in the year to 30 June 2016.

The latest accounts show that Vicary-Smith received a payment of £44,000 as compensation for the closure of the LTIP.

They reveal that Vicary-Smith’s basic pay rose to £241,000 from £235,000 in the previous year, and he received a bonus of £98,000, compared with £54,000 the previous year.

He also receieved a pension allowance of £27,000, benefits-in-kind of £17,000 and allowances of £38,000, but had to repay £1,000 of LTIP, according to the accounts.

The accounts say that the changes in executive pay are part of a wider change in remuneration policy at the organisation.

“Our remuneration review has led to a change in the reward structure for our senior executives from 1 July 2017, and indeed to the approach we will adopt for all our staff in the future,” the accounts say.

“Our reward programme now centres on a mix of commercial and charitable objectives for all our senior executives, and ensures an alignment of reward provision across the organisation as a whole, moving away from a long-term reward for a small number of executives focused on commercial goals.”

The accounts show that Which?’s overall financial performance was similar to the previous year, with total income falling slightly from £101.2m to £101.1m and total expenditure increasing slightly from £102.1m to £105m.

The charity’s annual general meeting was held yesterday, although the results of votes on several motions to reform the charity were yet to be finalised, according to a spokesman for the charity.

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No definitive way to deal with the GDPR, says Direct Marketing Association

John Mitchison of the DMA tells a seminar that charities will have to make their own decisions on complying with the General Data Protection Regulation

Charities and other organisations will not be given fully comprehensive guidance telling them what to do in every scenario under the General Data Protection Regulation, according to John Mitchison of the Direct Marketing Association.

Mitchison, who is head of preference services, compliance and legal at the DMA, told delegates at a Westminster Social Policy Forum seminar on charity fundraising yesterday that, in the absence of definitive answers, charities would have to make their own decisions about how best to do things in a compliant way.

But he added that the open nature of the legislation, which will impose higher data-protection standards on all organisations and is due to come into force in May 2018, could prove to be a positive for charities and other organisations.

“I think we’re lucky that the GDPR is a principles-based regulation and is not prescriptive” he said.

“So if you’re a glass-half-empty person, you might take this to mean you’re never going to have all the answers. There are just too many variations on what people do to have a prescriptive rule on what to do in every situation.

“If you’re more of a glass-half-full person, you’ll see this as giving you flexibility: you make the judgements yourself on how to do it and the way you do it is through the process of accountability.”

Mitchison said accountability was embedded in the GDPR in a way that meant it was not enough for organisations simply to comply – they also had to demonstrate that they were complying.

To do this, he said, organisations would need to put in place technical, organisational measures, as well as training programmes, policies and audits, to ensure they had got the evidence there to justify what they had done if anybody came asking.

He said: “Ultimately, you take into consideration the legislation but, because there’s going to be no definitive answers, you have to make a business-risk choice about how you’re going to go. If you can ensure you’ve got an accountability process in place, the chances are you’re going to be doing all right.”

But if organisations viewed the GDPR as a burden to be dealt with until they could carry on treating data in the same way as they had before, they were really not making the best of the situation, said Mitchison.

And he warned that the GDPR was a big deal for everyone within organisations that handled any sort of data, not just those in marketing or fundraising.

But he added: “It might be a big change, but I don’t think it’s the apocalyptic disaster that a number of GDPR consultants who have conveniently appeared out of the woodwork would have us believe.”

Rowenna Fielding, data protection lead at the consultancy Protecture, warned that charities should want to comply with the legislation even if they felt they could get away with a lower standard of behaviour. She pointed out that charities would not consider using child slavery, even if it were legal or poorly regulated, because they would feel they had a moral obligation not to – similarly, she argued, that moral standard should be applied to how data was treated.

“Character is who we are when nobody’s watching, and for 10 years the Information Commissioner’s Office has not really been watching,” Fielding said. “It’s been under-resourced and understaffed, and it has had too much work to do.

“But we’re supposed to be the good guys, the ethical ones that people look up to to do things right.”

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The Colostomy Association becomes Colostomy UK

The Colostomy Association has changed its name to Colostomy UK as part of a rebranding exercise.

Clare Matthews, marketing and communications manager at Colostomy UK, said the word “association” did not capture the charity’s wide range of activities, which include campaigning and running projects as well as offering advice and information to people living with stomas.

She said there was a trend among voluntary sector organisations to shed the word “association” from their names and replace it with “UK”.

Matthews said: “We wanted to get the message across that we are more than an association for patients. We also wanted to refresh our image and engage with more people, particularly younger ones.”

The charity decided to rebrand in December last year. Its new look went live on Saturday and coincided with an open day at the Reading-based organisation, which employs seven staff.

Creative companies in Reading were hired to provide the new logo and website, but all the other rebranding work was done in-house.

Matthews declined to say how much the exercise cost, but said: “The sum was minute compared with most rebrands.”

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Scout Association signs three-year partnership with National Citizen Service

The deal, expected to be worth about £1.5m to the charity, will see the association deliver some NCS programmes

The Scout Association has entered into a three-year partnership with the National Citizen Service in a deal that is expected to be worth about £1.5m to the charity.

The two organisations said they hoped the arrangement would enable them to support more young people and have a greater impact in geneal.

The deal marks the first time the Scout Association, which has more than 600,000 members in the UK, has been involved in delivering the NCS.

A statement from the two organisations said the partnership would be the first of many to test ideas through the NCS’s new innovation programme, which has been set up to enable the NCS Trust, which runs the scheme, and its partners to test new approaches to improving social cohesion, social mobility and civic engagement through the NCS.

The scheme offers 16 and 17-year-old school-leavers the chance to take part in seven or eight-week projects that include community work, a physical challenge and a residential placement.

The project, which is being supported by £1.5bn of government funds between 2011/12 and 2019/20, has struggled to fill all of its places and earlier this year it significantly reduced its participation targets.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said in March that the high cost of the scheme could not be justified.

The statement from the two organisations today said the partnership would open up new opportunities for the Scout Association to deliver innovative NCS programmes and integrate the NCS experience within scouting.

A spokesman for the organisations said the precise work the Scout Association would carry out was still being worked out, but was expected to be finalised soon.

As part of the deal, the TV presenter and chief scout Bear Grylls will become part of the NCS board of patrons, which is chaired by the former Prime Minister David Cameron, who introduced the scheme.

Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, said he hoped the deal would mark a turning point for the scheme.

He said the NCVO had been calling on the NCS for some time to work more closely with charities that shared its aims.

“Many in the sector feel the NCS has not worked well with local charities and not integrated itself well into local volunteering ecosystems,” he said. “This has been frustrating for those organisations and a missed opportunity for young people.

“I hope today will mark a turning point in the NCS relationship with the voluntary sector. All these concerns are being addressed as part of its nascent partnership with the Scout Association.”

Matt Hyde, chief executive of the Scout Association, said he hoped NCS graduates would become the scout volunteers of the future.

“Marrying the scale, reach and 110 years’ of experience of scouting with the resource and innovative delivery of the NCS will mean we have an even greater impact on many more young people,” he said.

Michael Lynas, chief executive of the NCS, said: “This partnership means that young people from all backgrounds will benefit from NCS programmes delivered by the scouting movement, and NCS graduates can in turn help scouting to expand its work in some of our most disadvantaged communities.”

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Association of Chairs receives £463,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund

The three-year grant will enable the membership body to work with chairs to build their skills, knowledge and confidence, and to reduce their sense of isolation

The Association of Chairs has received a grant of £463,000 from the Big Lottery Fund to a support and development programme for chairs and vice-chairs of small charities in England

The association said that the three-year grant would enable it to work with chairs to build their skills, knowledge and confidence, and to reduce their sense of isolation and help them be more effective. 

The association said that under the programme it would consult with chairs and vice-chairs of charities with annual incomes of under £1m about the support they need. It would also run a series of workshops throughout England, offer webinars and online surgeries and open an online discussion forum.

The association said that it hoped to reach about 6,000 chairs and vice-chairs through the programme.

The association already receives funding from the Garfield Weston Foundation to support its work with medium-sized charities and said the latest grant would help it to reach many more charity chairs.

Ros Oakley, executive director at the AoC, said in a statement: “We are delighted that the Big Lottery Fund has not only recognised the key role of the chair and the need to support chairs to undertake the role effectively, but is also making a real investment in making it happen. From what we have learned in our three and half years working with chairs, we know we can make a difference to their confidence and approach to governance. This is a real endorsement of our progress to date.”

The association was founded in 2013 to help address the relatively little support chairs of charities receive.

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