Game of Thrones actor backs Mencap petition on back-pay

Kit Harington has urged people to sign the online document, which calls for the government to pay the estimated £400m bill faced by care charities in back-pay for sleep-in shifts

The Game of Thrones actor Kit Harington has called on people to sign a petition from the learning disability charity Mencap asking for the government to foot the estimated £400m bill faced by care charities in back pay for sleep-in shifts.

The online petition, which has attracted more than 7,000 signatures, says many care providers face bankruptcy because of the bill, which “could mean the end of social care as we know it”.

According to Mencap, sleep-ins are used widely in the learning disability sector to provide care for vulnerable adults, and until recently workers were paid a flat-rate, “on-call” allowance rather than the national minimum wage.

The flat rate is typically £35 to £45, with workers receiving either the national minimum wage or the national living wage for the hours they spend providing care.

But in the wake of two employment tribunal decisions from last year, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy changed its guidance to ensure the national minimum wage applied to sleep-in carers.

As a result, HM Revenue & Customs has begun asking disability charities to give six years of back pay to affected staff. Mencap said this could cost the sector as much as £400m.

“We are asking the government to urgently commit to paying this bill as the sector cannot afford it,” the petition says. “Government caused this problem: only they can fix it.”

A statement last week from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said employers that underpaid workers for sleep-in shifts before 26 July 2017 would have historical financial penalties waived and HMRC would suspend its enforcement activity about sleep-in care shifts until 2 October.

“The government will continue to look at this issue extremely carefully alongside industry representatives to see whether any further support is needed and ensure that action taken to protect workers is fair and proportionate, while seeing how it might be possible to minimise any impact on social care provision,” the BEIS statement said.

“The learning disability sector in the UK is on the brink of crisis,” says Harington in the video. “It is faced with a back-pay bill of £400m which it cannot pay.

“Many of the providers of this essential, sleep-in service face bankruptcy. And some of the most vulnerable people in our society will be left without care, without hope and without an independent future.”

Harington, who is an ambassador for Mencap, has a cousin with Down’s syndrome and autism, who has been supported by the charity throughout her life.

Another Mencap ambassador, the DJ Jo Whiley, who has a disabled sister who receives sleep-in care, helped to launch the petition last week.

Jan Tregelles, chief executive of Mencap, said in a statement that the back-pay problem was the “most critical issue that Mencap has faced in 70 years”.

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Petition calls for Lord Grade to resign from Fundraising Regulator

The Change.org petition had 84 signatures this morning, including Ian MacQuillin of the Rogare think tank

An online petition calling for Lord Michael Grade to resign as chair of the Fundraising Regulator has garnered support from fundraisers after his comments in The Daily Telegraph and on BBC Radio 4 last week.

The petition, started two days ago on the petition website Change.org, had attracted 84 signatures at the time of writing and was started by a user under the name “Proud to be a Fundraiser”.

The petition comes just days after the regulator confirmed that Grade’s term as chair, which was initially an interim appointment up to January 2016, had been extended until the end of 2018.

Grade attracted criticism from sector bodies last week after saying in a national newspaper article that too many charities were “proving to be laggards” and were failing to address public concerns about fundraising.

He then appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme and gave out incorrect information about how the FPS would work, mistakenly saying it would allow people to block contact from all charities at once, rather than specific charities.

He has previously described fundraising as “the Wild West” and fundraisers as “rogues and cowboys”.

The petition calls on Stephen Dunmore, chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator, to “initiate a process to replace Lord Grade immediately and find a chairman who is willing and able to represent donors and not-for-profit organisations responsibly”.

The person who started the petition, who did not wish to be named, told Third Sector they were not expecting to attract thousands of signatures, but it was “a gesture of support” for a strong relationship between the Fundraising Regulator and the fundraising community.

“It’s not just to stir things up for the sake of it,” the person said. “Having the regulator is critically important and every fundraiser I speak to recognises that, but having that trust of the regulator, the donor and charities is the fundamental basis of moving forward.”

The person said Grade’s comments had been “disrespectful and myopic” and risked “forcing a wedge rather than forging a bond” between donors, charities and the regulator.

The text accompanying the petition describes the extension of Grade’s term as unacceptable, describing his comments as “broad sweeping statements to deliberately court controversy and fan the flames of division and discontent”.

It warns that Grade’s comments could result in charities becoming wary of engaging with the regulator, believing they would not get a fair hearing, and donors being put off making donations.

Ian MacQuillin, director of the fundraising think tank Rogare, was among the signatories.

In his comment on the Change.org website explaining why he had signed, he said: “I reluctantly made a call for Lord Grade’s resignation because I believe his public comments, which showed contempt for fundraisers and a lack of knowledge of his own organisation, mean he is bringing regulation of fundraising into disrepute at a time when we need a leader of the regulator who can build bridges and consensus, and regulate with the sector, not at it, to rebuild public trust in fundraising.”

The Fundraising Regulator declined to comment.

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