Friday 9 August 2013

More on Bubbs

I must say how wonderful it's been to see the supremely smug and self-satisfied Sir Stephen Bubb get a bit of a well-deserved kicking this week. I find his blog easily the most egregious and self-serving I've come across and it deserves widespread publicity for this reason alone in my book. 

Judging by the negative comments being left, it would seem that Bubbs Blog has attracted quite a few extra readers of late as a result of his extraordinary outburst 'Shawcross Brings Sector into Disrepute' attacking the Chair of the Charity Commission. Unfortunately they are no longer visible as a clearly rattled Sir Stephen has removed the offending post. Lets hope the British Library have duly recorded it for posterity though.

Clearly he has irritated the Daily Telegraph sufficiently for them to trawl through the blog looking for other gems, such as that concerning his rather fabulous 60th birthday bash at the House of Lords last November when the great and the good paid homage:-

He boasted how “an eclectic mix of family and friends, Acevo members, parliamentarians, churchmen, media, old college pals, trade unionists, Baronesses, cabinet ministers gathered to celebrate with me."


“I even had a note from Ed Miliband to wish me well, though as he said, '60; hard to believe it!'. And a card from Tony and Cherie Blair.
“Tony's nice note was rather touching 'thanks for your fantastic contribution to the nation and its voluntary sector'.”
The trouble is, according to the Telegraph article:-

However it has now emerged that the event – which is thought to have cost over £1,000 – was part funded by Acevo, which is funded by membership fees from more than 1,500 chief executives or directors from the UK's top charities.

Acevo confirmed that the organisation paid for half of the cost, and that Sir Stephen had “paid half the cost personally”. A spokesman said: “This was a tea party, no alcohol was provided and Sir Stephen arranged his own birthday cake.”
The spokesman justified spending donors’ money on the event because “part of its on-going work in building stakeholder relationships”.
Frequently boasting of his ability to cause a stir, given the response to his most recent outburst on CEO pay, I sincerely hope his Trustees or his ACEVO members begin to ask themselves if he conveys the appropriate image for the voluntary and charity sector in this day and age? There's no doubt in my mind that his typically pompous reaction has done the charity sector some serious reputational damage.  

It may be relevant to note that his ACEVO empire has been shrinking in recent time, with quite a few members voting with their feet, as revealed last month in this interview with Third Sector:-

The current slowing of political momentum, which Bubb calls "a kind of limbo", has coincided with a time of retrenchment and change at Acevo, which used to have an annual income of £3m and 45 staff, but now has 30 staff and an income closer to £2m. This is partly a result of the phasing out by next spring of the OCS Strategic Partners programme, but the number of sector leaders who pay between £200 and £800 a year for Acevo membership has also slipped, from a high point of about 2,000 to 1,591.

Sir Stephen represents the bosses of the voluntary and charity organisations that will either be forming partnerships with Probation Trusts to bid for our work, or that will bid on their own account for our work. 

8 comments:

  1. As these examples show, there is a race on in the third sector to ape the private sector in as many ways as possible. No doubt this is partly down to recruitment of board members etc from the business world, who bring their mindset with them. But it's also due to successive governments' obsession with outsourcing, and charities feeling that they have to be more business-like to compete for contracts.

    The more these organisations adopt the models of business, the less they become distinguishable from the big service companies like Serco - and the further they get from their original charitable purposes, no matter what guff they spout about service delivery.

    The risk they are taking is that all those people who have supported charities over the years will start turning away. If you look at the Twitter feed for Boycott Workfare you'll get a sense of the anger at the charities who are in bed with the DWP and seen as exploiting people dependent on JSA and ESA. This is becoming a real public relations issue for these organisations, who may quickly find themselves in their own form of welfare dependency, relying on government money because their original supporters desert them in disgust.

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    1. Tim,

      Yes I sense a real backlash against charities which Bubb either chooses to ignore, or is blissfully ignorant of. If they bid for our work, they risk even more reputational damage. I wonder if he was told to remove the offending blog post by some of his jittery members?

      Cheers,

      Jim

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  2. ' privatisation corporations ethical consumer' is a good site to keep an eye on Jim and no doubt Bubb will soon appear there with lots of his other slimey conections.
    There is a difference between the voluntery sector and charities by legal definition. Unfortunaty, no one seems to be aware of that anymore.

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    1. Yes a good point, the waters have been muddied by the widespread use of the term 'voluntary and charity sector'. But I notice that ACEVO has just had a re-branding and they've reverted to using the term 'charity sector'.

      I will have a gander at the site you mention.

      Cheers,

      Jim

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  3. The bottom line is, that a charity CEO should not be on the same wages (or more) then the prime minister! And maybe it's also time to have a look what expenses these CEO's claim for.

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  4. Buying one's own birthday cake speaks volumes about self-aggrandizement!

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  5. As it does about the nature of your relationship with everyone else who is attending your party...

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  6. The Independent is reporting about Sir Steve's birthday bash today.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/charity-boss-lobbied-health-secretary-jeremy-hunt-over-nhs-privatisation-documents-show-8762281.html

    ReplyDelete