John Obrien

There is a very unpleasant smell down here in the grassroots. Advocacy Alliance bites the dust, with its work hoovered up by a national organisation, and all around me other small local charities are being battered by the big boys (and girls).

I know where this smell comes from – it is pure, undiluted, greed and self-interest. Read More »

I’ve just come back from our annual community accountancy holiday – oops, I mean ‘conference’. Despite the tough times we had a good number of people there, and the barn dance was fantastic, but there are major challenges facing us. Lots of services, particularly in London, have disappeared and most of us are experiencing significant cuts in grants. Read More »

So Charity Business is being wound up and  the great back-office outsourcing debate hots up. I don’t know the details, of course, but it did strike me that the headline prices advertised by Charity Business were a bit on the low side. Charities face enough problems at the moment without their back-office support collapsing in a heap. There is help available, of course, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Charity Business mark two is already up and running, probably with the same people in charge. We see lots of groups come and go, and it’s remarkable how the same names keep cropping up, as well as the same people behind them. Read More »

I’d like to meet the person who invented competitive tendering for the voluntary sector (or whatever we are called today). Despite keeping my head down and getting on with the job, the joy of a competitive tendering exercise has finally landed on my desk and it feels a bit like a tidal wave.

And so we have many months of uncertainty ahead. Staff worried, partners worried, kids worried, plans shelved, Tupe forms to fill in (what a mess that is), redundancy policies to review, clients unsure, and lots of forms to fill in.

Of course, if you are spending public money on something, you want to make sure you’ll get value for money and the best deal you can. But what’s happened to a bit of common sense.

If you start a new school, and it does a good job, you wouldn’t dream of saying after 2? years – “right, your funding ends in six months time, and if you want to carry on as a school you need to bid for the money in a competition with anyone else in Europe.” Or, how about a three-year funding deal for a hospital? It’s clearly daft. So why is it not just as daft to do this to a provider of advocacy services, or citizens advice, or, dare I say it, community accountancy services?

Of course, we need to regularly demonstrate that we do a good job. Schools have Ofsted, hospitals have inspectors, we have regular reports and monitoring.

One day, like most things, the circle will be complete, and someone will have the bright idea that grant aid is good for certain services. For now though, I’d better start filling in some forms…

I’ve had three meetings in the last two days with groups that might be facing closure, or at least, some painful reductions in their activities. I suspect the cuts over the last year are beginning to bite.  

Depending on who I was talking to, the main concerns ranged from the liability of the trustees to the staff losing their jobs.

Interestingly, the beneficiaries didn’t really get a mention. But these are not easy things to face.  

I have nothing but the greatest respect for licenced insolvency practitioners, but one trustee mentioned that his primary concern was to make sure that what little they had left didn’t go to “some smart **** in a suit”. I don’t think he meant me – I had jeans on at the time and my support was free.

One group wants to close down (a simple dissolution) and it appears that neither Companies House, nor the Charity Commission require sight of any ‘final’ accounts. Companies House just needs the form to remove them from the register and apparently the Commission would be happy with a copy of the final bank statement.

I’ve told the trustees that, even so, the duty to produce accounts and have them examined is still applicable; but it’s interesting that no one seems particularly bothered.

Obviously, closing down when your assets exceed your liabilities isn’t too bad. But when it’s been left too late and it’s the other way round, it isn’t good. It’s made me appreciate that in our sector, there are hundreds of people in our infrastructure organisations who are able to give support to establishing a new charity or enterprise.

However, I can’t think of anyone who helps people close down gracefully, and I realise how little I know about the subject. Maybe we could spend all this transition money on this instead.

Back to work this morning after two days out of the office to find a mountain of emails.

I’m sure we all have ways of dealing with this. Leave them long enough and then press ‘delete’ is a favourite – just like the items at the bottom of the in-tray that have a built-in desire to locate the bin during that time between Christmas and New Year.

Time is a precious resource and managing it is a real skill. Like most of us in the civil society world I want to use as much time as possible doing what CA Plus exists to do. I’m constantly trying to minimise what I call the ‘down time’.

Some down time is obviously service-related and an essential part of what we do – a bit like the financial overheads. It might be indirect, but without it we could not deliver the services. This might be team meetings, meetings with trustees, or fixing the computers, but it’s so easy to fall victim to down time which is less critical.

As part of the voluntary sector infrastructure world, I receive many invitations to meetings and events. I was recently at a seminar with one of our own funders. The event itself was really important as it concerned the funding relationship – grants, contracts and all that.

While there, the subject of the Compact came up. I confess my view was that since it has clearly been consigned to the bin, it may as well stay there. I dread to think how many millions of other people’s money has been spent on compacts, with very little impact as far as I can see. I suppose others may argue that spending time, and therefore money, on the Compact will lead to a better society in the long run. I doubt may tax payers would agree.

Anyway, enough moaning. I’m beginning to sound like a certain national newspaper… back to the emails.

John O’Brien is chief executive at CA Plus 

I quite enjoy our trustee meetings at CA Plus. Last week, not only did
we have cake as well as the usual discussions on keeping chickens, but
much interest was generated when it was suggested that the budget I was
presenting could be improved if we had alternate shading on each row.

Some of you may have had the joy of reading an independent examiner’s
report. Many years ago we used to write our report in very simple
language. Then the regulators came along, on the pretext of consistency,
and we were obliged to use the legal gobbledegook we know and love.
Yes it is consistent, but I bet hardly anyone reads it and even fewer
understand it.

There is of course a serious point to this and it’s to do with the
presentation of financial information. Shading every other row can make
it easier to follow a row of numbers across a page, or screen. Anything
we can do to make things easier to read and understand is worth thinking
about.

It doesn’t just apply to budgets (printed, or even projected on
the wall). The same is true of accounts. Small print, overly complex
spread sheets, too much detail, changing the layout from one year to the
next – none of this helps. It’s possible to go too far the other way.
Too little detail might raise questions. It is really a matter of
balance and consideration for the ‘audience’.  It’s only taken me a
minute or two to add some shading to the rows in the budget, but if it
helps trustees to focus on the numbers, then it’s well worth it.

I like to use the phrase, ‘going beyond the numbers’. Numbers are there
to tell a story. Working in the ‘third sector’ is about doing good
things, not having nice numbers. But at least if you can understand the
numbers, there is more chance you’ll do good things.

How good to read Debra Allcock Tyler in
Third Sector recently. The last thing I want CA Plus to become is a ‘business’.
The idea that charities are inefficient and useless, and we should all learn
from the smart and clever business world, is really quite hilarious given recent
economic history.  Yes, there are some very nice businesses out there, and
yes we will be efficient, we will manage risks, focus on quality etc; but I
have no desire to screw our clients for all I can get and then retire to my yacht.

Anyone running an organisation needs a bit
of skill. Common sense is probably about 90 per cent of it, but some knowledge and
training can help – from how to avoid an HR nightmare to how to do a cash flow.

I don’t really know how much central government funding goes to support new
businesses, but I suspect it’s quite a few quid. But I can tell you that
precisely £zero goes into supporting small charities with community
accountancy. Some local funders, like here in Nottingham, see the value of it,
but it’s not a good story elsewhere. It’s important not just so that groups can
have nice accounts, but so that they can continue to make a real difference to
peoples’ lives.

Some years ago I had the joy of doing lots
of accounting exams. Many of my fellow students were dreaming of a high
flying career in the city, saving tax for rich folk. Personally, I can’t
imagine a worse way to spend my time. To be honest, sorting out the trial
balance of a small charity this morning has not been the most exciting
experience, but I know that if this charity has good accounts, and I can help
them keep under good control, then there is more chance that they will be able to
carry on supporting the refugees they work with.

There is a new film out now called Oranges
and Sunshine. It’s about child migrants and I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a
painful story with occasional sunshine, and it happens to be based around the
people involved in a charity we have worked with over many years. The
world of community accountancy is an odd place, but stories like this remind us
why we do it.

Now, where can I buy a nice yacht?

On days like this I need to remind myself
that if I really did have perfect knowledge of the future, what an awful world
this would be.

It’s a new financial year and, as always, a bit of uncertainty is
fine. But there are limits. Trying to plan and make decisions on spending when
you have little idea of the income is quite a challenge. 

There are a few
things I rely on to get through. Having some reserves, just in case, is always
good. Keeping on top of the accounting, so that you can see problems quickly,
is essential. Many groups we work with only know they are in trouble when the
salary cheques bounce. If you deliver a training course and only charge £200,
how do you know that’s enough? Good costing and budgeting tools help me a lot
(there are some free ones on our website).

In the day job, here at CA Plus, we are
more fortunate than many in that we will continue to receive grants from the
city and county councils, albeit with a reduction. 

Our plans are in
place; some staff and salary changes sorted, the budgets approved, and we
can all get on and deliver the services our client groups are needing. We have
challenging targets as always, but it keeps us on our toes.

In my voluntary role as a treasurer, it
hasn’t been so simple. The charity is receiving news almost daily of changes to
our funding – some bad and some good. We are nowhere near setting the budget
for 2011-12 as we still don’t know what posts we will have. Meanwhile people
continue to come to the door for help. We have sorted out the management structure
and now attention is focused on other posts. There is much to do.

Last week I was in a seminar with funders
and commissioners. I shared my own dream that if a service is tried and tested
and likely to be long-term, why not give a 10 year deal with much tougher
annual reviews? They wouldn’t fund a school or a hospital for only 3 years.
From the tone of the ensuing discussion, I’ll need to keep dreaming.

John O’Brien is chief executive of CA Plus

The interaction between trustees and
managers is always fascinating. I think I actually wrote a dissertation on it
years ago. At our last meeting, one long-serving trustee commented: “I don’t
know why we are discussing this at all, surely it’s up to John, and if he gets
it wrong then…..”

We were discussing the potential changes to
staffing in the year ahead. Yes, trustees are ultimately responsible, but would
or should they know the details? They need to be satisfied that the finances
are sound and that the charity’s objects are not set to one side, but the
staffing arrangements?  Of course,
it’s different in every organisation. In smaller charities trustees may know a
lot more about the day to day operations. A colleague elsewhere recently had an
interview, as did all 30 staff. These interviews were with a panel of trustees
who then made the actual decision on which posts should go – most odd, in my
view.

One evening last week I was in the role of trustee of a
local charity supporting the homeless and unemployed. We met to
consider a final survival plan for next year since most of the funding will be lost in three weeks’ time (so much for the big society). As a trustee, I know about the
legal side, I know a bit about finance, but I don’t really know if we need two advisors or three, or if they
need to work 20 hours or 18. My view is that trustees need to sort out the
management structure first. The manager(s) can then propose the detail for us
to approve or not, and if they get it wrong…