The Spirit of Christmas Present?

Peter Harvey posts….

I was truly shocked by the news, reported in Third Sector, that the BPS is considering making some 32 people redundant.

From any perspective that clearly demonstrates a hugely dysfunctional organisation. This is a minute from the Board of Trustees (BoT) meeting of 15 September 2023

Finance – the August 2023 management accounts showed that the positive trend from July was continuing. The current operating deficit is REDACTED better than
budget. The overall bottom line is significantly better than a year ago, although this improvement was largely driven by improvement in the value of investments. Membership network subscription income is now REDACTED ahead of budget. 

Now I’m no accountant but that doesn’t strike me as an overly downbeat assessment of finances, yet just over two months later these draconian measures are proposed. There are hints, though (from the same minutes)

Trustees discussed the proposed drawdown from reserves. Trustees were asked to approve a drawdown of up to REDACTED. It was hoped that a smaller amount, REDACTED, would be needed. The drawdown is for general expenditure rather than specific items and relates to the need to balance cash flow through the end of the year. Most membership income is received in January and February. 

The overall financial objective is to achieve break-even by the end of 2024. Further work will be needed on cost reduction, to keep the plan on track. The proposed drawdown would leave reserves close to the prudential level approved by Trustees of 9 months’ income

Delving back to the BoT meeting before that, we read

A number of financial indicators are positive. The apparent increase in direct income as at April 2023 is linked to a systems/anniversary issue causing a gap in recorded income in early 2022. Accurate figures are now available. It is too early in the year to predict the full year outcome for 2023 but early indications are satisfactory.

and

Trustees noted progress on plans to increase income and reduce costs. 

Again, no acknowledgement (except that bland phrase “…reduce costs…”) that there is any problem.

From the minutes of the BoT for 21 April we read

Trustees discussed whether the organisation is making sufficient progress in improving the financial position. It was noted that headcount and discretionary spending are areas that organisations often look at when seeking to cut costs in the short term. There are currently 8 vacancies, albeit not a blanket freeze on recruitment. The SMT review staffing on an ongoing basis, balancing the financial demands on the organisation with the need to continue to provide core member services, and ‘extreme’ cuts may be more harmful in the long term. 

So, within the space of two months the BPS has to “reduce costs” by pushing thirty two people out despite this phrase in the extract above 

and ‘extreme’ cuts may be more harmful in the long term.

It raises serious questions about the financial management and reporting systems in the BPS – yet again. How much have the Trustees been told? After all they are legally responsible for the financial health of the Society. Why is there a sudden need for such major cost savings? It must seem a bitter paradox that the BPS has blown £6 million on the Change Programme (to what effect?, the interested reader may well ask). Why are members being deprived of critically important information (note the redactions) about the future viability of the Society which they pay for? These are not ‘commercially sensitive” data nor does it relate to named individuals. It is yet another example of the wilful and deliberate withholding of key information from the membership. Let’s have some honesty, please.

Will it be any of those 18 staff members, with their grandiose (and largely meaningless) job titles whose combined salaries are around £1.5 million? After all, it is these people who must take the overall responsibility for the operational management of the Society. Call me an old cynic but my guess is that they will stay and, as in all organisations, it’s the “poor bloody infantry“ that bears the brunt.

It is just those people on whom the BPS is absolutely dependent. Without them the Society simply would not work. Remove the odd highly paid Director of [fill in your own ostentatious new management-speak title here] and I doubt would we would notice the difference. Note that during the 12 month suspension of the CEO the BPS still functioned (presumably he was still paid during his gardening leave). But lose those hard working and committed people who do the donkey work and where are you. Without a paddle and hopefully not up a creek managed by Southern Water.

Back in the day (OK nearly 25 years ago now) I held three posts in turn (Chief Examiner, Chair of the Board of Examiners, Chair of the DCP – and no, I am not a BPS junkie) which had a degree of responsibility. They also made serious demands on my time – and, no, I am not asking for your sympathy here as I gave that time willingly and freely. But the point of this is not to self-aggrandize but to emphasize that I simply could not have done these jobs without the helpful, willing and kind people in the middle ranks of the BPS bureaucracy. Not only were they well-versed in the reality of how the organisation worked in general and their subsystems in particular, they often gave much more than their position and salary indicated. They were tolerant of my naivety, subtle in their advice and always, but always, had the best interest of the membership at the centre of what they did. Sometimes, I think that their close identification with their particular sub-grouping with the BPS meant that they attracted management censure for having (to use a politically and culturally inappropriate phrase in these post-colonial times) “gone native”. 

So, if this is where the axe will fall, then who is going to guide and support those volunteer office-holders which the BPS so desperately needs? Who will provide the continuity, the hidden knowledge that the manuals don’t include? Who will provide the services that members pay their (soon-to-be-increased) subscriptions for? Who will do the actual day-to-day work?

But this is a selfish perspective. I write this at the start of December – three weeks or so before Christmas. Thirty two people – and let’s not distance them by calling them members of staff – these are real people with real families, real mortgages and energy bills to pay, real mouths to feed – will be facing the festive season with dread and foreboding. Their New Year will be uncertain, unpredictable, filled with fear as to whether they will be able to find another job or they will be subject to the cruel vagaries of the benefit system. Uncertainty about your job is bad at any time but there is cruel irony about the timing of this news.

Perhaps the BPS, rather than spending its time and scarce resources chasing whatever current cause triggers its need to virtue signal, might spare a thought for those people on whom it depends. But perhaps it simply doesn’t care.