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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Catherine Johnstone appointed chief executive of Royal Voluntary Service

The former chief at Samaritans will take over from David McCullough, who is in turn becoming chief at the Abbeyfield Society

Catherine Johnstone, the former chief executive of Samaritans, has been appointed chief executive of the older people’s charity the Royal Voluntary Service.

Johnstone will succeed David McCullough, who leaves at the end of the month to become chief executive of the older people’s housing and care charity the Abbeyfield Society after more than five years at the RVS.

Johnstone, who left Samaritans in 2015, was until March interim chief executive of the Dover-based charity Migrant Help. She is chair of the Directory of Social Change and was last year appointed CBE for services to suicide prevention.

The charity, which employs 1,200 staff and has more than 25,000 volunteers, supports more than 100,000 older people each month.

Johnstone, who before joining Samaritans was interim chief executive of Capacitybuilders, the now defunct quango that provided infrastructure support to the voluntary sector, became a trustee of the RVS in January, a role she will relinquish before she becomes chief executive of the charity on 1 August.

Income at the RVS has been falling in recent years: it was £64.7m in the year to the end of March 2016, £10m less than in 2011/12.

Johnstone will be paid £136,500 for the role, the same amount that McCullough was on.

Richard Greenhalgh, chair of the RVS, said Johnstone’s record in building sustainable services, driving innovation and inspiring and enabling volunteers would be invaluable.

Johnstone said she was privileged to take up the role. “With an increasingly tough time for our society, I am looking forward to working with the staff and volunteers to ensure that Royal Voluntary Service can be the best it can be,” she said.

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Royal Opera House pension deficit more than doubled last year

According to its newest accounts, for the year to 28 August 2016, the pension liability went up from £16.9m to £35.7m

The pension deficit of the Royal Opera House more than doubled to almost £36m last year, the charity’s latest accounts show.

In its accounts for the year to 28 August 2016, which were posted on the Companies House website on Sunday, the ROH’s pension liability is listed as £35.7m, compared with £16.9m for the previous year.

The charity said a change in accounting requirements was among the reasons for the large rise in the deficit.

The charity’s defined-benefit pension scheme closed to future accrual on 31 March 2016 and it made £1.5m in contributions to the scheme during the year covered by the accounts.

More than £2.6m was also contributed by the ROH to five other defined-contribution pension schemes.

The charity agreed to reduce its exposure to future pension risk by freezing pensionable salary for any pension accrued after 30 April 2013, the accounts say.

A spokeswoman for the ROH said: “During the 2015/16 year, the Royal Opera House’s defined-benefit scheme was closed to future accrual. The deficit repayments are being managed with the scheme trustees.

“Another reason for the increase is the changes resulting from FRS102, an accounting change that we have had to reflect in our accounts this year, like other charities.”

FRS102, which applies to accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2015, has introduced a number of changes to the reporting of pension liabilities in accounts that have led to increases in reported pension liabilities for many charities.

The ROH accounts show that five senior employees earned more than £183,000 in the year covered by the accounts.

Sir Antonio Pappano, music director at the ROH, earned a basic salary of £115,301 and fees of £569,099, so he received £684,400 from the charity during the year.

But this was a reduction on the £737,424 he received the year before.

The other four people on salaries of more than £183,000 were Alexander Beard, chief executive of the ROH, who was paid £260,139; Sally O’Neill, chief operating officer, who received £187,262; Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, who was paid £183,423; and Kasper Holten, director of opera, who was paid a total of £253,205.

The spokeswoman for the ROH said the pay for senior staff reflected the “international market” and the fees paid to Pappano were for his conducting engagements with the Royal Opera, which varied from year to year.

The accounts show that the ROH’s total income was £139m for the year, compared with £145m the previous year. Its Arts Council England funding fell by 5 per cent from April 2015 for a three-year period.

The ROH spent £134m, compared with £126m the year before, the accounts show.

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