President of the Royal Albert Hall should resign, says one of his predecessors

Richard Lyttelton, president of the charity between 2010 and 2011, says the current incumbent, Jon Moynihan, should stand down because of the hall’s governance row with the Charity Commission

A former president of the Royal Albert Hall has called on the current president to resign over a long-running dispute about the hall’s governance and the private sale of tickets at inflated prices.

Richard Lyttelton, a retired executive at the former music giant EMI who was president of the charity between 2010 and 2011, has made the call for the departure of Jon Moynihan, the former executive chair of PA Consulting who now runs a venture capital firm, in a letter to The Times newspaper that it has published today as a news story.

The letter says recent events have shown that “the governing council of the hall, dominated by commercial self-interest, continues to bring shame on this great institution”.

Lyttelton has been campaigning for reform of the constitution of the hall, which provides for a majority on its governing council to be elected from among the owners of a quarter of the hall’s seats, who can and do sell their tickets privately at high prices on the internet.

Moynihan has been leading resistance to pressure to change this aspect of the constitution. The hall’s own ongoing constitutional review has specifically ruled out doing so, arguing that its conflict of interest policy was sufficient.

The Charity Commission has also been pressing the hall to amend its constitution to remove the seat-holder majority, repeatedly setting timetables for action that the hall has not followed. It has recently asked the Attorney-General for consent to refer the case to the charity tribunal so it can clarify its powers to impose changes to the hall’s constitution.

Lyttelton’s letter points out that 19 members of the council and parties related to them own 143 seats.

“What is not disclosed is these seats are worth in the region of £20m and 90 of them are owned by just four council members and their related parties, who could earn upwards of half a million pounds a year just by returning them to the box office under the hall’s own ticket-return scheme,” it says. 

“Under its current president, the council has tasked the executive and the hall’s lawyers with defending the indefensible. Enough is enough – it’s time for the president to step down and the hall to be given a constitution worthy of its charitable status and place in our nation’s heritage.”

The commission said in a recent statement that the perception that trustees could benefit financially from their role was very damaging and the hall had been unwilling to deal with a number of central issues.

“We have taken the unprecedented step of seeking the consent of the Attorney-General to refer a number of questions to the charity tribunal relating to the charity and the exercise of the commission’s regulatory powers.

“These will include, but are not limited to, the nature of the charity’s constitution, the commission’s ability to issue a scheme in order to amend the constitution and the proposed content of such a scheme.”

A spokeswoman for the hall was not able to comment in time before publication of this story.

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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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