Extended History For a more detailed account of the Charity ...

By Merrick Willis CEO from 2009 - 2015

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ContentsIntroduction 2

Snapshot - The Way We Were 4

Starting Point 9

The Evolution of Service Delivery 15

Governance and Environment 35

Fundraising and Awareness/Communication 57

Corporate Matters 62

Author’s Footnote 66

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A Brief History of The Charity for Civil Servants

Introduction

The early years of the second decade of the twenty first century saw the 125th anniversary of what was then called the Civil Service Benevolent Fund. They have seen massive change, not only in terms of the Charity’s operating environment but also in its governance, coverage, name and services. However even a cursory glance at the Charity’s history shows that recent change is only part of a continuous process of development and reaction to events in both the Civil Service and wider society.

Previous members and staff of the Charity have ensured that a historical record has been kept of activities since 1886, but the last time this was formally done in narrative form was the publication of the seventy five page illustrated booklet “100 Years of Caring” written by Ron Hayward BEM, a former Chief Welfare Officer for the Inland Revenue, member of the Committee of Management and latterly Fund Publicity Officer, for the centenary in 1986, when it was still known as the Fund.

The Charity’s environment has changed radically during the generation since, and it would not be appropriate to publish a formal booklet in this style which few outsiders would wish to read. However, it feels proper to ensure that the history should be brought up to date, if only so that in years to come interested people will be able to understand changes that have taken place and why.The Hayward booklet, while only twenty eight years old, was

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written in a particular style which reflects a more gentle and perhaps less cynical world – or possibly just that Ron was a particularly kind and caring person! This update may be more subjective and in modern jargon, judgemental.

I am writing it during my final months before stepping down as the eleventh Secretary/General Secretary/Director/Chief Executive in the Charity’s hundred and twenty eight years. I have received help from my three predecessors, Ian Rathjen, Rosemary Doidge and David Main and from Robert Hubble and Beryl Evans, both Directors during the tenure of Rosemary and David, as well as a number of people still working or volunteering for the Charity.

I have also drawn on the archive we have centralised of relevant documents going back to before the establishment of the Benevolent Fund in 1886 which is now centralised in the CEO’s office at the Charity’s headquarters and of course available to anyone who is interested.

Merrick Willis, CEO (2009 - 2015)

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Snapshot - The Way We Were

It seems appropriate as a starting point (and for those who do not have access to the booklet) to set the scene around the time of the centenary in 1986. Some paragraphs taken from the booklet demonstrate how very different the Charity/Fund– not to mention the world - was only a generation ago:

“The extremities of the Fund are the representatives (there should be one in every Civil Service establishment, large or small) and the Area Committees which these representatives elect annually. The Committees have several roles (recruitment, fundraising, support of local representatives) but their most important function is arranging for one of their number to visit every applicant for help and to make regular calls on those beneficiaries who are receiving long term allowances from the Fund.”

In 1986, there were still almost a hundred area committees which played a major role in both the governance and operations of the Charity.

“In its early years the Fund was preoccupied with the financial plight of widows and it was many years before a sub committee was formed to visit applicants. Because many widows were left with young children, the Fund then moved to the physical care of orphans by placing them in approved institutions to which donations were made. Even in 1940 the Fund had 180 orphans in its care.”

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The emphasis in the late 80s was still very much on dependents. The Charity continued to finance places at boarding schools for children whose fathers had died in service, although these were reducing in number. There was a legacy of a male-dominated Civil Service and the higher mortality rate of previous generations, allied to much lower levels of welfare support, indeed in some cases left over from pre-1948 Welfare State beginnings, and a heavy residue of help to widows who were not covered by improvements and changes to pensions introduced in 1949 and 1973.

“The scope of assistance gradually extended to include endowed beds in hospitals and to places in convalescent homes. Then serving staff on sick pay were brought under the Fund’s umbrella. This emphasis on help during illness was necessary because until 1948 there was no national health service. Those on lower salaries were covered by health insurance through friendly societies but for most civil servants visits to the doctor or admission to hospital led to bills or assessment by almoners of contributions to the costs of treatment, hospitals at that time being supported by voluntary contributions or public benefactors. Illness was therefore a double crisis and the temptation not to seek treatment and so avoid expense was very strong.”

Of course by 1986 this situation had changed, not only because of vastly improved provision of healthcare facilities, but also by the provision of sick pay, including statutory sick pay which was introduced in 1983, but the legacy remained.

“The 1947 reconstitution of the Fund extended benefits to non-members”.

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Significant numbers of civil servants still believe today that they have to subscribe in order to be beneficiaries as many as sixty seven years later! In 1986, the emphasis was still on “members” even though the meaning had changed and now referred to individual civil servants or staff of associated or approved organisations who donated at least a specified minimum amount each year. One of them is quoted in the booklet as saying “The Fund is like an insurance policy, everyone hopes they won’t need it, but it’s there in an emergency”: an interesting perception mid-way between the original “members only” situation and the true state of affairs.

“In 1984 the Fund received from public funds £368,000. It is right to acknowledge that the Government as an employer has, particularly during the past 20 years, given appreciable help to the Benevolent Fund.”

If only…… Using RPI and other indicators, that’s well over a million in 2014 terms. And it was to increase to just over a million by the end of the century. But the Cabinet Office grant to the Charity is reducing to a supposedly (!) “steady state” of £100,000 per annum in 2015.

“Although direct provision of residential places has been Fund policy for only one third of its first hundred years, that side of its work has grown to absorb fully one half of the money donated year by year. Nearly 400 staff are employed in the homes and HQ staff too have increased in number with the growing number of places and the increased complexity of home management. The meeting of need by direct provision of accommodation rather than by helping to pay fees in homes run by other bodies has enabled the Fund to control the standards of care provided

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and to become a leader in the voluntary sector provision of specialised nursing and residential care.”

In 1986, the Charity had 325 places in its nine homes, which included 58 convalescent places. Lammermuir House in Scotland opened that year, and Penarth House in Wales was due to open the following year. Another fourteen places were due to be provided by a home opening in 1987.

Significantly in 1986 four homes achieved registration for nursing care, meaning that six out of the nine Charity homes were so registered: at the time considered a great advance, in reality sowing the seeds of future problems by greatly increasing the expense and complexity of care home provision.

“Within these figures (of people helped, 4,900 in 1984) is an increasing level of help to serving civil servants. In 1959 only 43 grants were made to staff on full pay: by 1984 this had risen to 266. The period 1982 – 84 showed more than 200 such grants every year and this may reflect the particular difficulties that have been experienced by civil servants since 1981. Indeed in 1985 and 1986 help to serving civil servants grew faster than ever before. Whether this is a statistical blip or the start of a major change in the nature of Fund help only the next 25 years will show.”

We now know it was the latter, and it didn’t need twenty five years to become apparent. A summary of a typical week for “Case Section” at Fund House showed:

48 grants to beneficiaries recently widowed, many with dependents. Area committee members had visited each of these applicants. Total c £3.9k17 grants to serving staff on reduced pay due to long

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term sick or recently retired on grounds of ill health. A further 12 staff received grants to reduce financial distress caused by unforeseen domestic crises. Total c £3k10 retired CS were given assistance to meet special needs - c £2.3k8 new allowances were approved to widows and widowers, normally <£4 pw

The Charity’s umbrella had only been extended to cover “industrials” six years previously, in 1980. The move from Watermead House in Sutton to what was then called ‘Fund House’ in Cheam had taken place in 1983.

The concept of “fringe bodies” – non departmental public and other non-Civil Service bodies, previously part of the Civil Service but now at arms’ length – becoming “associated organisations” had very recently arisen: in 1985 there were 42 of them employing 73,000 staff. Associated organisation status was to be formalised in the Charity’s constitution in 1987.

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Starting Point

In the centenary year of 1986, the “Rules of the Civil Service Benevolent Fund” registered on 31st March 1983 specified the Objects of the Fund as:

• grant assistance in case of need, in money or kind to the dependents of civil servants who have died whilst serving or after retirement

• grant assistance to civil servants or to their dependents in cases of need arising as a result of the civil servant being on sick leave without pay or pay at a reduced rate

• grant assistance to retired or prematurely retired civil servants in cases of need arising through ill health or other circumstances

• grant assistance to civil servants in need in circumstances not covered by the above

• at the discretion of the Committee grant assistance to former civil servants in need, such persons having left the Civil Service in circumstances not covered above

• provide and or subscribe to the provision and maintenance of residential homes, hospitals, convalescent homes, schools and other charitable institutions, support or grant assistance to housing associations or other charitable institutions and build maintain and manage houses with the object of procuring admission to or assisting in the obtaining of the benefits of such institutions or the provision of such housing for civil servants and retired civil servants or their dependents being in need of the facilities thereof.

• Assistance may include a contribution towards the cost of any necessary medical or surgical treatment or supplies, any necessary education, apprenticeship or training and any other object in which need is established in a particular case

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They are reproduced in full to illustrate the very different position in which the Charity then was.

The Rules dictated that the policy of the Charity was determined by a Council comprising over two hundred departmental representatives drawn via a complex matrix of measures involving staff numbers and establishments, as agreed between each department and the trade union side of the relevant Whitley Council, plus local representatives and representatives of the Area Committees.

The Council met annually and its meetings would have been familiar to attendees at political party or trade union conferences, with pre-submitted motions, debates and resolutions.

The Council appointed four trustees, “taking into account nominations made by the Whitley Council”. In practice there were two permanent secretaries and two trade union officials/nominees, who also served as property trustees and pension trustees.

The day to day affairs of the Charity were the responsibility of the Committee of Management, which consisted of up to twenty eight individuals, including co-optees, with a Chairman, Vice Chairman, Treasurer, the General Secretary, twelve members elected annually by the Council, four members from the “official” side and eight members from the “union” side nominated by the Civil Service National Whitley Council. The Committee had various committees and sub committees: Standing Orders, Finance & General Purposes, Homes, Fundraising and Cases. Both the main and sub committees met quarterly. As well as the hundred-plus Area Committees, each of the Charity’s residential and

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nursing homes had its own local committee.

The Committee of Management was chaired in 1986 by Sir Brian Cubbon, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, who was in his last year in the role. He would be replaced in 1987 by Sir Richard Lloyd Jones, Permanent Secretary at the Welsh Office. He was the fifteenth Chairman since 1887, but the first sixty years of the Charity’s existence had seen only six men in the role.

The General Secretary was Ian Rathjen, who had taken up the post in 1977 and who would remain until 1992. He was both appointed by and a member of the Committee of Management, the only paid official to be so. As Assistant Director, Accountancy Services/Forensic Accounting at the MOD, he had previously been Treasurer of the Charity for nine years and was invited to take early retirement in order to take on the General Secretary role. His predecessor, Philip Wolstenholme, had been General Secretary for 13 years, and had previously worked for the staff side of the National Whitley Councils: he had been the first paid person in the role: his predecessors, only six in nearly a century, had all been serving civil servants.

His title, “General Secretary”, reflected the trade union origin of the role. It would not be until Rosemary Doidge OBE was appointed in 1992 that the title would change to “Director and General Secretary”.

Staffing at the Charity still largely reflected the Civil Service in terms of grades and terms & conditions. For example, people were appointed as AOs or EOs, a situation that continued well into the 1990s. Staff conditions and pay had to reflect the national situation: this was to prove

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a massive burden as the union-dominated Committee of Management continued to insist that staff in the Charity’s various homes should all be paid at national rates reflecting those in the public sector, as opposed to the more competitive and regional rates in private homes against which the Charity would increasingly have to compete for fees.

On appointment in 1977 Ian had found himself a governor, ex officio, of among others Christ’s Hospital School, a legacy of the paid places maintained by the Charity at that stage for orphans/dependents. This had largely been allowed to lapse by 1986, by when only two orphaned children were being supported in full time education.

He managed the Charity’s operations through autonomous deputy general secretaries, one each for Cases & Finance and Recruitment & Publicity, and a Senior Matron responsible for the homes. He concentrated on the financial side, and was given a new car every year to enable him to drive about 20,000 miles a year visiting the homes and area committees.

Some departments were much closer to the Charity than others: for example, Inland Revenue was a great supporter as, ironically in view of more recent trends, was MOD. Civil servants very much regarded the Charity as “theirs”, and in areas like Inland Revenue, there had never been any problem gaining access to staff. By 1986, this was changing. While staff support was still strong, support from more senior levels was waning. A more managerial, less patriarchal (in the positive sense of the term) approach was allied to new rules and regulations such as data protection, which meant that information which had previously been

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available, for example details of those about to retire, was no longer accessible.

Trades Unions were a hugely influential part of Charity life. As well as their strong presence on the Committee of Management, many of those on area committees were trade union representatives, and this, allied to the role still played by the committees, which presented the cheques to beneficiaries, meant that the Charity could be and sometimes was perceived as an extension of union patronage, not least by the unions themselves.

The other group strongly represented within Charity affairs were welfare staff from all departments. Many of the referrals to the Charity came via welfare services, and departmental welfare officers would visit serving staff who sought help and worked closely with Charity Headquarters to manage individual cases. Former or retired staff were visited by members of area committees, many of whom were serving or former welfare staff.

The homes were a focal point for Fundraising activities, and the relevant area committees regarded their local home as “theirs”. However they were concentrated in the South and efforts were being made to spread regionally, hence a home opening in Scotland in 1986 and another being under construction in Wales.

The Impact Report for 1986 records that: “The Fund provides:• Allowances or grants to widows and dependents of

serving or retired civil servants• Allowances or grants to civil servants prematurely

retired on health grounds

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• Allowances or grants to civil servants on prolonged sick leave without pay or on reduced pay

• Loans or, exceptionally, grants to serving civil servants who suffer unforeseen misfortune

• Convalescent centres and residential homes”

In the centenary year, direct grants and allowances totalling £704,000 were made to 6,085 individuals, of whom 4,050 were widows and other dependents, 919 were sick or disabled civil servants, 311 were retired civil servants, and only 372 were serving civil servants. In addition, repayable loans were given to 97 serving civil servants.

Three hundred and twelve individuals were being cared for in the nine homes and convalescent care was given to 912 individuals in the three centres.

Twenty two thousand membership forms were completed in the Centenary Year. But almost a third of the Charity’s income was being spent on building residential homes, a sum boosted in 1986 by the Centenary Appeal which raised £456,038.

The year also saw the appointment of two professional Fundraising teams, North and South, a total of seven full time equivalents, and a major departure for the Charity and the start of a period of very successful donor recruitment. There had been a national network of publicity officers since 1947, retired civil servants who visited offices to speak to staff directly about the Charity.

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The Evolution of Service Delivery

Thus the services provided by the Charity were dominated at the start of this period by residential and respite care, with the next highest category of beneficiaries being those sick or disabled. Of the money disbursed in “grants and allowances”, the majority was still in the form of allowances to widows and other dependents.

The pattern of the next (almost) three decades can be summarised as the Homes and their disposal, transition to grant-giving, and the move to a service-based model: inevitably the three phases overlapped.

THE HOMESBy the early 90s, over half of the Charity’s resources and the overwhelming majority of Charity staff (500+) were tied up in the homes, which cared for a relatively small (c330) number of people:

• Osborne House, (Convalescence) IOW• Blachington House, Seaford• The Branksome, Buxton• Caerketton Cottage, Edinburgh• Cookham House, Cookham• Creedy House, Littlestone• Eady Close, Horsham• Kilronan House, Belfast• Penarth House, Wales (opened 1989)• Oakhill House Horsham• Wessex House (Convalescence) Bournemouth• Lammermuir House Dunbar

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There was a Cases Section at HQ, but no employed regional presence. The HQ team dealt with applicant enquiries and processed payments of grants following Charity guidelines. The HQ team worked closely with Welfare Officers in Government departments and also with a large network of volunteer Visiting Officers throughout the country.

In 1992, Rosemary Doidge took over as Director of the Charity. She soon realised that the current balance of services needed review. However, to do so risked alienating many of the Charity’s long-term supporters, many of whom had been involved in supporting and fundraising for the residential, nursing and convalescent facilities over a long period of time. Area committees in relevant locations looked on the homes as “theirs” and based much of their activities around them.

Some of the homes were recently acquired. Osborne House was taken over in 1985, Lammermuir House was opened by the Queen in the Centenary Year, Penarth House in Wales was opened in 1987, and Hawthorn House in Belfast opened in 1992 replacing the smaller Kilronan House. Others had been expensively refurbished or re-engineered. Oakhill House was refurbished in 1991, but a planned facility of twelve beds for the elderly mentally ill still under construction in 1993 could not be opened due to staff recruitment difficulties and specialist staffing levels imposed by the NHS authorities. A hydrotherapy pool was largely funded with a grant from CSIS, but proved very costly for the Charity to run. At Horsham, the Charity also owned a close of houses and flats adjacent to the Home and this was managed for the Charity by a housing association – Crown Housing. Residency should always have been linked to a Civil Service connection, though in practice this did not always happen.

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There was a lack of corporate agreement internally. Unsurprisingly those employed to run the convalescent, residential and nursing facilities did not support reviewing their future. But the appointment of a new Assistant Director, Finance, IT and Administration, Robert Hubble, in 1993 gave the new Director an opportunity to initiate a challenging review.

A wide range of issues was identified:• The introduction of necessary but costly health and safety

legislation (H&S Act 1992).• The Care in the Community Act 1993, emphasising and

providing support for the maintenance of people in their own homes, the resultant changes of responsibility for new placements in homes from DSS to Social Services, and the end of automatic support following assessments by Local Authorities/Social Services of individuals’ need for care.

• Increasing vacancies in residential homes – 10% in 1993, and the increasing numbers of those with no link to the Civil Service being admitted to raise occupancy levels (and revenue).

• Attempts to introduce wider services such as EMI care resulting in increased costs.

• A mix of old and new properties which was sub-optimal for care provision and costs.

• Mal-location, as a result of which residents were often far from their families, and vacancies were sometimes filled to maintain occupancy rather than meet need.

• High staffing costs as a result of Management Committee insistence on maintaining national pay rates and giving non-contributory pensions in line with the public sector to staff already employed on full NHS rates - which already included a pension contribution and unsocial hours payments etc.

• Increasing exposure as a provider rather than enabler of care, in terms of all the risks associated with dealing with a vulnerable client group.

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This was of course in addition to general financial pressure and changing perception of the appropriateness for an occupational charity to concentrate its resources on a relatively small group for whom alternative provision was available.

First steps were to look at other ways of raising income, for example by hiring out of facilities such as hydrotherapy, and attempts at change were taken by establishing an out-placement service, including a freephone number at Fund House, to help find suitable approved homes for those seeking care.

The Charity joined VOICES – an organisation of voluntary organisations with Nursing Home responsibilities – to exchange ideas and experiences in the hope of introducing efficiencies in its operation. The Director contributed a paper to the study by the Royal British Legion on Homes provision by Service charities. The Charity also invited the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to advise on whether the Horsham complex could form a basis for the new concept of retirement villages.

Regular “worst case scenario” predictions were presented to the Management Committee, but there was perhaps understandably little agreement in the Committee about what should be done. But at a meeting in 1995, chaired unusually by the Vice Chairman, the Committee totally unexpectedly took a vote that initiated the disposal programme by selling one of the Homes. The Matrons were called to an early meeting and the position explained to them. It was decided soon afterwards that Oakhill House at Horsham should be the first offered for sale, and it was duly sold to BUPA as a going concern in 1996.

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The full programme was still not finally agreed: in 1996, the Committee of Management reaffirmed its wish to continue to operate homes, but accepted that financial pressure could lead to major change, and a consultation process was initiated on changes to staff terms and conditions, to last until 1997. However, further legislation including the Disability Discrimination Act, the EU Working Time Directive and the Asylum and Immigration Act loomed large for all employers and particularly one in the increasingly complex and competitive care provision market.

In 1997, the decision was taken to dispose of all the homes. Three homes closed the following year and the disposal process proceeded apace, although the housing complex at Eady Close in Horsham was not finally sold until 2009.

The disposal process was one of the factors that indicated the need for a review of the Charity’s governance (see below), as a number of difficult legal issues had to be overcome due to lack of clarity as to who legally represented it in terms of trustees etc.

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TRANSITION TOWARDS GRANT GIVINGThe pattern of financial support being provided by the Charity was gradually changing in parallel with the more dramatic and visible saga of the homes. The 1990s in particular saw the emergence of the trend away from concentration on allowances mainly to dependents towards support for serving staff. The table below tells the tale graphically in terms of people helped per year by category over the ten years leading up to the final disposal of the homes:

As almost half the Charity’s resources during the period up to 1997 were devoted to maintaining less than four hundred residential places, the overwhelming emphasis on older people and widows and dependents can be appreciated, as can the gradual move towards help for serving and sick or disabled staff.

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The revision of the Rules in 1995 reflected this historical balance but by the time only four years later in 1999 that the Rules were again revised, the emphasis had shifted to a more general statement about relief of need for civil servants, former civil servants and their dependents.

The emergence of the trend towards the position in the second decade of the next century, when over 70% of those helped would be serving staff and well below twenty percent dependents, is clear. With the closure of the homes, by 1999, nursing home fees had shrunk from accounting for over 30% of turnover only three years previously to less than 8%.

This trend, developing as it did as the closure of the Homes became inevitable, was accompanied by further moves to professionalise service delivery. In 1993 two part time regional coordinators were appointed followed by a further two in 1994 to support and train volunteer visiting officers, liaise with Area Committees, and undertake visits to complex cases.

A further significant development was the decision in 1994 to move away from the authorisation of maintenance allowances to the payment of one-off grants, albeit with the possibility of repeat payments. In 1995, the AGM passed a resolution that childcare costs could be a reason for help, another “first”, as was the decision to allow grants to help with funeral expenses.

Change was reflected by the Charity’s management: in 1997 the Council voted for, in the words of the Annual Report, “new services relevant to the membership of today. The Fund exists first and foremost to provide care for needy Civil

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Service colleagues….we have taken a decision signalling a change in policy in the way we help with nursing, resi-dential, respite and convalescent care. Effective help will be available to many more of the people eligible to receive assistance from the Fund for many more years to come.”

“In developing new services we must not overlook the needs of our younger colleagues, many of whom support the Fund.”

In 1998 an Assistant Director was appointed to oversee the development of Help and Advisory and Regional Services delivery. That year’s Annual Report records that following his appointment “a three year strategy for HAS is being developed. The aim is to divert funds formerly used to subsidise the Fund’s own homes into a range of new and innovative services for applicants. Some of these advances will be in the field of information, where HAS staff will be assisted by the development of new databases and links with the Internet. Other proposed developments include enhancing the current network for Care Placement and Advisory Services, expanding our regional structure for deployment of voluntary and specialist visits and developing a greater range of responses in the area of child care.”

At the same time an Advocacy Service, funded by CSIS, was introduced to help applicants with complex needs in the areas of benefits, accommodation and social care.

Change was accelerated by a further significant development in 1999 in the wake of the closure of the homes, in the shape of a formal commitment to expand alternative services underpinned by new ‘Rules for the

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Fund’. New appointments were made including seven regional coordinators to facilitate the deployment and coordination of volunteers for providing response to people in need and a care database development coordinator, highlighting the increased emphasis for the Charity’s Help Centre, set up in Fund House at the same time, to provide applicants with more information about local and national services and benefits to which they might be entitled in a more timely fashion. The Regional Coordinators appointed included Judith Smith, currently Director of Help and Advisory Services, Paul Horsman, Sheila Fitzgerald and Julian Cundey, all still serving in 2014. Further appointments were made in 2000 and 2001.

Although their appointment was part of the professionalization and improvement of services and the relinquishing of responsibility for case management by the Area Committees, it should also be set against the gradual erosion of the Civil Service welfare function that had previously seen Welfare Officers undertake some of the role of evaluation and visits.

Different models were trialled, including a permanent help line, which proved too expensive to run. It is interesting to note, however, that the emphasis was still on support for elderly people with services such as the Homes Advisory Service. A Care Database Development Coordinator was appointed to give applicants more information about local and national services and benefits.

1999 saw the formal establishment of the Help Centre at Fund House. In 2000 the decision was taken to introduce an expanded child care service, reviewing the financial help given and increasing the range of information provided.

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Most significantly, in the same year the first web site was launched, enabling greater access to service information and email approaches for help. At the same time, a new help and advisory policy was introduced to allow greater flexibility, taking a broader view of circumstances and emphasising the provision of a range of information and help in addition to purely financial help.

A leaflet produced in the early 00s gives a snapshot of how services were developing:

• A visiting service – our trained Visiting Officers meet with the applicant and assist them with completing and returning an application to the Charity

• An advocacy service – our Regional Coordinators provide practical advice and help with some of life’s more complex problems, such as accommodation, community support, practical help and benefits

• A care placement service – we undertake research and provide information and advice (and even financial assistance) on short term and long term care options e.g. nursing, residential, respite and convalescent care anywhere in the UK

• Childcare support – we have researched and compiled a list of UK registered childcare providers to help with applicants’ needs and can assist, in certain cases, financially with the cost of the care

• Information helpline – manned by friendly, personable staff who will sympathetically deal with all enquiries, referring callers onto other suitable charities and local organisations where appropriate.

Close relationships were being developed with other charities, and in particular the Charity worked ever more closely with the Civil Service Insurance Society Widows and Orphans Charity (later to become CSIS Charity Fund and the Charity’s largest individual donor), undertaking direct

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grant giving on their behalf in a number of different ways including the expansion of care home fee top-ups, grants for special needs and education grants.

Over the first decade of the 21st Century, Help and Advisory Services based in Fund House continued to develop a well-found model of grant giving supported by a wide range of advisory services to support those in need, underpinned by a network of experienced Regional Coordinators managing complex casework, looking after volunteers, and networking regionally.

A new HAS policy was introduced in 2009 whereby all applications for financial support were to be judged against four principles. They continue at the time of writing to underpin the Charity’s service model as far as financial assistance is concerned and are therefore reproduced in full:

THE PRINCIPLE OF ELIGIBILITYIn order to obtain any form of assistance from the [Charity], all applicants must be:a serving, former, or retired Civil Servant, or a serving, for-mer, or retired employee of an approved ‘Associated Organ-isation’ (a list is maintained at No 5), or a dependant of one of the above. Applicants need not be contributors to the [Charity] to access any of its services.

THE PRINCIPLE OF NEEDThe [Charity] aims to address Need by the most appropriate means of assistance. Evidence of the precise need or needs will always be obtained and recorded. Whilst nothing is specifically excluded from being identified as a need by an applicant, the [Charity] will consider to what extent an ex-pressed need is essential to the health and wellbeing, safety

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and security, and the ability of the applicant or their depen-dents to maintain normal daily living (including attendance in employment).

The [Charity] can respond to need in the following ways:• By giving recorded relevant support, advice and guidance• By referring applicants to any appropriate statutory,

voluntary or other services• By giving financial assistance.

Some needs put forward by applicants will not meet the [Charity’s] essential criteria for financial assistance. Trustees have identified a selection of needs which are excluded from the scope of the [Charity’s] assistance:

• house purchase• improvements to any home or property owned, mortgaged

or rented in the UK and abroad • home adaptations, without exception, outside the UK• all household repairs to rented properties that are the

responsibility of the eligible person’s landlord• legal fees and costs of legal representation • distress caused primarily because of loss of earnings as a

result of strike action • private medical treatment (except in certain exceptional

circumstances)• treatment for infertility• repatriation of persons or bodies• private education • further and higher education • payment of fines• applicants dismissed on grounds of gross misconduct

(except in certain exceptional circumstances and at discretion of Chief Executive Officer)

• Car repairs (except in certain exceptional circumstances)• Consumer credit debt repayments, payday and log book

loans

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THE PRINCIPLE OF CIRCUMSTANCESIn order to properly assess an application, the [Charity] will take an holistic approach to considering the full circumstances of the applicant and their household, and the background to the problem presented. The household of the applicant is defined as one where a couple or family group live together and are financially integrated.

The [Charity] will consider whether the circumstances of the application could be deemed to be unexpected or unanticipated. In some cases, the circumstances will be unavoidable (for example, going onto reduced or nil pay after lengthy sick absence, or paying funeral costs) even if they could have been foreseen.

Full investigation of the financial circumstances of the household will be required in all cases where financial assistance is to be considered. This will include income and expenditure, savings and capital and all outstanding liabilities for all members of the household.

The Trustees have determined that financial assistance provided to staff with service of up to six months, will usually be limited to a maximum of £500. Apart from this, no other decision will be based on length of service.

Where there is no request for financial assistance from the [Charity], the need to provide documentary evidence will be reduced to what is needed to ensure the accurate provision of advice, guidance or signposting to other services.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ALTERNATIVE RESOURCESThe [Charity] will not replicate or replace or pre-empt services or financial assistance that should be met

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by statutory provision. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate that they have applied for, and accepted, all relevant sources of assistance from statutory services and, where appropriate, any local specialist services.

INTRODUCTION OF A SERVICE-BASED MODELThe financial crash of 2008 proved a watershed in an unexpected way. The crisis had been anticipated since the collapse of Northern Rock in 2007, one of the first symptoms of the so-called “credit crunch”. The whole charitable sector was braced for what was logically presumed would be the fallout, and occupational and other grant giving charities dealing with poverty and hardship were considered to be in the front line.

On cue, 2009 saw the highest-ever level of grants given, just under £4.8m, a record that reflected a trend that had been evident for some time.

This triggered some financial modelling to determine what sort of financial position the Charity might occupy in years to come and in order to determine strategies to deal with probable shortfalls, the effect on reserves and other possible consequences.

But as it turned out, this was the high water mark. The next few years saw a steep decline in grants, in line with what appears to be happening across the broader occupational charity sector. It would be wrong to base strategy entirely on the results of (to date at the time of publication) only five years, but it has led, both within the Charity and elsewhere in the sector, to a change of emphasis from a financially-based offering to one based on a wider range of need.

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Coincidentally, also in 2009 the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Education, Sir David Bell, decided that he wanted to use a relatively small amount of money (c£70k) to pump-prime an improvement of what was available to civil servants who were also carers. Wisely - or serendipitously – he proposed giving the Charity the cash in order to set up something that would benefit not only staff in his own Department, but throughout the Civil Service.

After much discussion, it was decided to experiment with a service that supported individuals in creating a case for support as carers, to be called a “carer’s passport”. The idea was that a document would be produced using the expertise of the Charity as applied to an individual’s circumstances that could be used in making a case for support in the workplace, such as a more flexible working arrangement. It was also anticipated that this would trigger requests from carers for financial support.

It did not. Charity staff found themselves in the novel position of offering financial support that was refused! Overwhelmingly those using this new service were not interested in money but needed other forms of help.

This was a major departure: for the first time the Charity was offering something that had no relation to cost, apart from the obvious marginal/opportunity cost of providing the service. It swiftly became obvious that the Charity was able to reach a new audience, that the proposition, difficult to counter, that the Charity was mainly about helping the destitute and the low paid, was encouragingly being undermined.

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The Passport was, and remains at the time of writing, a huge success that has helped many hundreds of civil servants. It was enthusiastically embraced by HMRC in particular who have as a department gained at their own admission great benefit in terms of working relations with staff and morale.

Shortly after its introduction, in a second piece of serendipity, the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health, Una O’Brien, who was later to become the Charity’s first female Chair, was keen to build on the Government’s Mental Health Strategy for England published in early 2011, “No Health Without Mental Health” – a cross-government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages – by ensuring that it was taken seriously by the Civil Service as an employer.

It was suggested to her by one of the Board of Trustees, a senior member of the Department of Health (it is worth recording that this was a colourful character, Siobhan Benita, former head of communications for Sir Gus O’Donnell as Cabinet Secretary, who subsequently resigned from the Civil Service and stood in the election for Mayor of London as an independent, securing over 80,000 votes!), that the Department could partner with the Charity in order to produce something to support staff and their managers. In the event, it was the Charity that proved to be the lead in this project, and those responsible produced a web-based information offering, mainly aimed at individuals but with a component funded by DH aimed at managers, which turned out to be innovative and widely welcomed. It was produced in partnership with NHS Choices and the major mental health charities, with at least nominal input from relevant trades unions and employee assistance

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programmes. Not only were staff within the Charity given specialist training in order to give the best possible advice, but volunteers were also brought into the programme.

Uptake of the new programme, launched in late 2011, was slow. Part of the problem was that the wrong name was chosen. The various partner organisations involved urged caution about being too explicit, as a result of which the scheme was launched under the banner “Health On Your Mind”, a title which was in retrospect too opaque.

The other issue was lack of impetus within the Civil Service. Despite the fact that the scheme was initiated and supported by the Department of Health and the Head of the Civil Service, and that it had the potential to set the Civil Service up as an exemplar of Government policy, the Charity was confronted by inertia and complete lack of interest from what can loosely be termed the corporate Civil Service. It had to rely entirely on its own resources and contacts to publicise the scheme, at best an uphill task.

However, the gradual expansion of the (re-named) service has justified the effort and expense of its creation. Its relevance has repeatedly been underscored not only by universal acceptance that mental health in the workplace, and consequent sickness absence, is a major issue but also by market research carried out by the Charity that shows anxiety, stress, depression and mental health as among the strongest concerns of staff.

Like the Carer’s Passport, here was another instance of a service that was “needs blind”. Except in specific instances, people were not coming to the Charity for financial help. The Charity was acting as enabler, as a preventive measure

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to help people at the early stages before they got into difficulties.

It was becoming clear that at the same time as demands on the Charity financially appeared to be diminishing, it was tapping into areas of need of which it of course had been aware and which in many respects it had tried to meet, but that a more fundamental approach was needed.

The next area to be addressed was the obvious one of debt and financial capability. Meeting financial need had naturally always included an element of advice, but formal debt and financial advice is an area fraught with issues such as regulation and possible legal consequences. Although Charity staff and volunteers had often been in a position of offering support and limited advice, in general there had been a reluctance to go beyond referring applicants to a partner organisation, StepChange, for further action.

The establishment of a Money Information and Debt Advice Service, accompanied by appropriate management and staff training, meant that help and advisory staff had the knowledge and confidence to start offering meaningful advice that enabled those with problems to manage their affairs better and in some cases avoid getting deeper into financial problems. After less than two years of operation it is already clear that this service is producing benefits and that some of the diminution in applications for financial help is the result of guidance and advice given at an earlier stage.

Thus with caring, mental health and money at the centre of what was clearly becoming a fresh service model, the newly

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re-branded Charity for Civil Servants launched its services in 2012 under the headings of Health, Wellbeing and Money, to emphasise the greater spread of what is on offer.

The intention was to develop services offering “the best of the best” in terms of help, information and advice in all those areas in which the Charity had traditionally become involved in addition to money, mental health issues and caring in the workplace, such as bereavement, chronic illness and disability, all aspects of caring, relationship breakdown, domestic abuse and addiction.

The service model soon expanded into partnerships with other service providers in the not for profit arena, and at the time of writing, new services are being established in three areas: dementia, in partnership with Age UK and Dementia UK, with whom a pilot using an Admiral Nurse is being undertaken; relationship breakdown, in partnership with Relate, who are being funded by our Charity to provide a web-based Live Chat counselling service; and depression, in partnership with the Depression Alliance, who have established a web-based community to support those suffering with depression with funding from the insurance industry.

As well as being entirely new services, they are notable for several important reasons:

• They are relevant to all the Charity’s likely audiences• Other organisations are being paid to provide services in what

is effectively outsourcing• At least part of all services except the giving of grants is

now needs blind – financial assessment only takes place if significant cost is involved

• They are – or should be – directly relevant to Civil Service management in terms of supporting a far wider group of staff

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There is also a strong element of experimentation. Although considerable effort has gone into researching the need for all new services and into setting up the most comprehensive services possible, only time will tell if they are effective and if the Charity’s target audience wishes to use them. Importantly much remains to be done in terms of convincing the Civil Service to treat the Charity as a partner in supporting staff. Without this, reaching staff with news of what is available may prove the greatest barrier to the Charity’s future development and growth.

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Governance and Environment

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CIVIL SERVICEAlthough in 1986 the governance of the Charity and its management were still firmly rooted in the Civil Service and the National Whitley Councils in particular and would retain these links for another twenty years, the relationship had started to change in response to the large scale changes introduced by the Conservative Government of the 1980s. The last quarter century has seen a distance develop between the Civil Service and its occupational charity which in some respects is healthy and inevitable, but in others regrettable and to the detriment of those it exists to serve.

On the one hand there has been a loss of corporateness – increasing departmental autonomy in terms of employment and welfare issues, while more recently there has developed a drive to outsource HR and other so-called “business processes”: a source of concern from a management as well as welfare perspective. The Civil Service regularly seems to veer from delegation to centralisation, with an inevitable effect on its relations with the Charity.

Among the other factors that have gradually changed the dynamic of the relationship are:

• The virtual disappearance of the welfare function from most departments except those with specific needs such as FCO, DfID and the Intelligence & Security Services, and the emergence of Employee Assistance Programmes. Welfare staff would often be the point of referral to the Charity for staff in difficulty.

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• A loss in the influence and role of trades unions.• An end of jobs-for-life both in terms of guarantees of

job security and also the idea that staying with the same employer or profession is the norm.

• The end of induction, or move to induction on line, in which knowledge of the Charity could be passed on to new staff and staff could be encouraged to donate.

• Loss of information about those retiring from or leaving the Civil Service: such information used to be made available but increasing concerns about data protection mean this is no longer possible.

• A gradual increase in recruitment from outside the Civil Service, particularly at a senior level, resulting in senior civil servants, permanent secretaries and even the current (2014) Head of the Civil Service (and incidentally Charity President) and the professional Civil Service Head of HR being non-career civil servants, with no knowledge of and little sympathy for institutions like the Charity

Ian Rathjen reflected that an automatic default position of support for and welcome to the Charity by Civil Service management when he took over in 1977 had changed significantly by the end of his time as General Secretary in 1992. Rosemary Doidge reported the trend continuing during her time at the Charity, and some departmental reorganisations and increasing emphasis on outputs tended to make it harder for Charity recruiters/fundraisers to gain access to the workplace. There were questions about automatic collection of contributions from payroll as Government passed responsibility for pay and pensions to the private sector, from Paymaster to Capita.

The trend has continued to the present, and current changes in both ethos and organisation have rendered any reversal impossible.

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The last bullet point above is particularly significant. In recent years, it has become obvious that a number of senior staff recruited from the private sector into Whitehall do not understand or recognise the need for an occupational charity, perceiving civil servants as reasonably paid with excellent terms and conditions of employment and having little understanding or knowledge of the Civil Service outside London.

Support for the Charity amongst rank and file civil servants remains encouragingly high, with a donor level that has been as high as 28% of all staff and remains above 18%. But support is overwhelmingly from junior staff, with almost 80% of donors being of lower administrative grades. The number of senior civil servants donating is disappointingly low at less than 6%, while among permanent secretaries, at the time of writing only three donate, none of whom has been a donor for more than three years.

The obvious and compelling argument for giving management support to the Charity, that it offers positive support both to staff welfare as such and to a management agenda of preventing sickness absence etc, does not seem to resonate with the Civil Service corporately.

There have been other and more direct pressures from within the Civil Service. Historically the Cabinet Office gave the Charity a grant in aid (in common with the other two so-called “welfare bodies”, the Retirement Fellowship and the Sports Council), and continued until the 1990s to be very supportive. The move into Fund House and its purchase were facilitated by Cabinet Office grants. Until the first decade of the twenty first century, the grant in aid rose steadily ahead of inflation to a high of just over a million

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pounds, but from the turn of the century onwards it came under pressure and in 2005 it was frozen at half a million, and the intention was that it would shrink to £350k. At the same time there was pressure for the Retirement Fellowship to come, as it had been until thirty years previously, under the Charity’s management in order to save costs. This was fiercely resisted by CSRF, and the grants remained unchanged until 2009, when a review was ordered by the Cabinet Office Capability Review Group.

It is worth recording the process for posterity as it was something of which Sir Humphrey, alongside Douglas Jay and the other scriptwriters for “Yes Minister” would have been proud. The review was undertaken by a senior member of the Department for Transport, whose report clearly stated that “all three Welfare Bodies provide services that are valued by those who use them and that are an important part of the offering of the corporate Civil Service as an employer.” A strong case was made for the Charity in particular. The report’s recommendations, however, which were clearly pre-determined, suggested various ways in which a diminution of funding could be mitigated, thus justifying reductions of funding which ran counter to the report’s own conclusions.

The report was used to justify what was referred to by the Cabinet Office, in a delightful euphemism used with no apparent irony, as “a smooth glide-path to self sufficiency” by reducing funding to £100k a year over a five year period. The Cabinet Office at first indicated it might help facilitate some of what the report recommended as possible measures to replace the lost funding. In the event, and after almost a year of negotiation and prevarication, they admitted that they were not able to assist with a single one

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of the recommendations. One of the Capability Review Group, in a rare moment of frankness, said: “It would have been more honest and wasted less time if we’d just said – we’re cutting your funding, now ----- off.”

A story of diminishing support from and engagement with the management of the organisation the Charity exists to support should be balanced by acknowledgement that there are many people at all levels within the Civil Service who offer strong support. There is a network of ambassadors for and friends of the Charity who offer many different kinds of help, and there continue to be dedicated volunteers who give their time and expertise. It is particularly encouraging that recent changes to the Charity’s governance and the recruitment of committed senior civil servants to the Board of Trustees have shown how much difference dedicated people who understand the value of the Charity can make.

But there is no doubt that the past three decades have seen a change in the Civil Service’s corporate attitude to its Charity from general support to an equivocal relationship that ranges from enthusiasm, through indifference and ignorance, to disapproval and scepticism. It is particularly unfortunate that this is the case given the continued support and approval from the lower paid, hence the attempt to emphasise and define the relationship with the strap-line adopted when the Charity re-branded in 2012, “for you, by you”.

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GOVERNANCE AND ORGANISATIONAs a matter of record, Chairs and Directors/CEOs since 1986 have been as follows: (Date of appointment shown)

Chairs Directors/CEOs

Sir Brian Cubbon 1983 Ian Rathjen 1977

Sir Richard Lloyd 1987 Rosemary Doidge 1992

Sir Thomas Legg 1993 David Main 2003

Sir Nicholas Montagu 1998 Merrick Willis 2009

Sir Brian Bender 2003

Sir Stephen Laws 2009

Una O’Brien 2012

Sue Owen 2014

“The Starting Point” section above gives some idea of and context to the governance ethos of the Benevolent Fund, as well as detail on the structures in place during the late 80s.

For the purposes of historical record it seems appropriate to chart details of the various changes that took place in 1995, 1999 and 2005 before concluding with the more fundamental change that took place in 2010.

The objects and purposes of the 1995 Rules were almost identical to those of 1986, and the various structures remained largely unchanged. At this stage, “membership” required a contribution of £11.40 per annum. The Chairman, Vice Chairman and Treasurer were still to be appointed by the National Whitley Council to a five year term, with a secretary appointed by the Committee of Management.

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There were still to be four trustees appointed by Council, and the Director was to be appointed by the Committee of Management. Council would still consist of departmental representatives, area committee representatives and the Committee.

The Committee of Management was to be twelve elected by Council, four nominated by Official Side and eight by Trade Union side of National Whitley Council, plus the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Treasurer: a total of up to twenty nine.

Council business AGMs and SGMs were still regulated by an elected Standing Orders Committee. Convoluted procedures for elections, motions to AGM submitted by area committees, departmental reps or the Committee in advance, or emergency motions, remained.

In the late 1990s, the Director, Rosemary Doidge, was keenly aware of the need for change following the disposal of the homes. She commented “As the rather intense period of activity on all these processes abated, we were already working on constitutional reform and trying to devise a workable streamlined structure. In many ways the Fund had remained rooted in its Victorian origins and its governance structures had not been fundamentally reviewed. We knew that remaining registered as a friendly society was not a long term solution, but the immediate priority was to communicate the need for change to all our supporters, to consider their views for improvement, to finalise what structure we should adopt and then to get approval for it.”

The changes made in 1999 represented a significant step towards a more centralised management system and more modern governance style.

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The 1995 rule changes had left the twenty nine strong Management Committee members and the two hundred-odd representatives on the Charity’s Council responsible between them for the policy, management and conduct of the affairs of the Charity. They were therefore all, in law, trustees. In addition, a separate group of Property Trustees appointed by the Management Committee had a separate function by having the assets of the Charity vested specifically in them.

The sale of the homes had exposed some of the anomalies in this system which was anyway unsustainable as charity law placed increasing responsibility on trustees. To quote from a contemporary report: “the primary objectives of the management programme were to relieve Council of its Trustee responsibility and liability in law for decision making while retaining its valuable advisory role to the Management Committee, and its democratic appointment of Committee members. To focus policy making and trustee responsibility within a representative but smaller Committee of Management.”

The size of the Management Committee was reduced to fourteen in order to streamline business, and elected trustees were to be elected for three rather than one years at a time. The Chairman and Treasurer were still to be appointed by the Cabinet Office, the Vice Chairman by the Council of Civil Service Unions, six members were to be elected by the Council one was nominated by CSRF, one was appointed by the “official side” i.e. the Cabinet Office, and three by “staff side” i.e. CCSU.

Departmental and Agency representation on the Council was also streamlined. Most significant was the change to Council business, which went from a theoretical role of

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determining policy to a more advisory role of approving appointments and rule changes. However, the cumbersome old-style system of motions to Council and other conference-type traditions was maintained. Significantly also there was no attempt to reduce the numbers involved in theoretical governance.

The new objects and rules agreed were much broader than before:

“The Fund is established for the purpose of providing, by voluntary contributions or otherwise, a fund or funds out of which it may:

• Grant assistance in cases of need, in money or kind, to Civil Servants, former Civil Servants and their dependants.

• Provide, or subscribe to the provision of, residential and nursing services or any other facility for benefit for Civil Servants, former Civil Servants and their dependants who are in need.”

Contributory “membership” was to remain at £11.40 per annum which meant that almost 200,000 people were still involved in voting each year.

The 2004 AGM agreed the next set of changes to the rules which came into effect in 2005.

In some respects the changes were radical, in another a backward step. What they did not do was address the issue which had been identified by Rosemary and others, which was to move the Charity from being a Benevolent/Friendly Society with charitable status to being a charity under the umbrella of the Charity Commission, and at the same time incorporate it so as to limit the potential liability of its legal members. It is interesting to quote Rosemary again when

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she states: “my handover notes to my successor made it clear that moving to registered charity status should be high on the list of future priorities.”

The new objects were different in that they removed the specific provision for residential or nursing services:

“The Fund is established to provide, through voluntary con-tributions or otherwise, a fund or funds out of which it may grant assistance, in money or kind, or otherwise provide for support to beneficiaries in need.”

The radical change was to remove the distinction between statutory members who were members of the Council and contributory members that existed previously. Members of the Society were now defined as current or former civil servants or associated organisation employees who have donated at least £2 per month for a minimum six month period. These new members would be entitled to a vote on Council business – one member one vote – in place of the previous arrangements under which representatives came from area committees and ministerial departments and associated organisations.

Although the new Rules simplified the procedure and business of AGMs, the fact was that this “democratisation” and move away from the block votes of area committees and departments meant that any vote, including the vote to elect members of the Management Committee, had to be canvassed to all eligible members, at that stage almost 150,000, while the Rules stipulated that certain resolutions would require a majority from two electoral “colleges”, one of individual members and the second of representatives of departments and organisations.

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It was claimed that the considerable expense of previous AGMs would be reduced as the expenses that had previously been paid to area committee and department/organisation representatives would no longer be paid, and that voting papers etc. could be sent out with newsletters and other publications. This however did not take into account the decision to involve the Electoral Reform Society in the monitoring of governance processes, an expensive overhead.

The Management Committee was re-named as Management Board and its composition was changed so that the Cabinet Office nominees reduced from three to two and CCSU nominees from four to two. The Board was given the power to co-opt two trustees with suitable skills. Separate property trustees continued to be responsible for the Charity’s assets.

The changes also established new regional committees in place of the old area committees, to reflect the eight Government regions of England and the three devolved national administrations. Change was needed as the area committees, of which less than thirty remained, had been withering away for some years, particularly as their functions were increasingly taken over by Charity staff. Some were still effective, but the majority increasingly represented an overhead in terms of support that was not justified by fundraising and other activities. It was further pointed out that the demise of a large number of area committees meant that areas of the UK were no longer represented in any way in the Charity’s governance or affairs.

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It was further considered that it would have been unnecessarily disruptive and insulting to the many supporters who had formed the backbone of the area committees over many years to abolish them. But the new committees were doomed from the outset, as they covered huge geographical areas and therefore lacked the cohesion for fundraising and other activities of the remaining area committees.

As one of the area committees pointed out:• “Regionalisation is going to cost in both time and money,

particularly travel and subsistence.• Some form of area sub-committee will be needed if you

want us to continue fundraising. This will add costs all over the country almost creating two tiers of committee.

• Managers generally have not backed Fund activities in the past, is it going to be any different in the future? Staff find it difficult to get time off to attend local meetings, how are they to have time off to travel the region?”

Their concerns were justified, but a transitional phase away from area committees was felt appropriate. As a means of retaining links, an Advisory Committee was established, meeting twice per year, on which the Chairs plus one from each regional committee were to sit, providing advice from the regional perspective to the Management Board.

The fact remained that the governance system for the Charity was cumbersome, costly and while apparently “democratic”, did not produce the robust governance oversight needed by a charity operating in a cost-conscious, increasingly regulated and professionalised charity environment. For example, despite the elaborate arrangements for an all-member voting system, the reality was that in 2009, the Management Board had no elected

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trustees from the GB Civil Service. All elected members were either retired or from the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The expensive annual voting for the Board and other resolutions at the AGM produced a response that made the later Police and Crime Commissioner elections look positively successful.

To their great credit, the Management Board agreed to a proposal for change that would see most of them leave it, recognising that improvement was needed. Accordingly a proposal was put to a general meeting at the end of 2009 that the Charity should become a charitable company limited by guarantee, with a Board of Trustees appointed by a Council consisting of members representing ministerial departments, the devolved national administrations, associated organisations, the Council of Civil Service Unions and some other bodies such as the Retirement Fellowship.

The term “member”, which had caused confusion within a community with some memory of a time pre 1947 when only those who subscribed to the Benevolent Fund could be helped by it, was abandoned in general use. Those donating to the Charity would be referred to instead as ”donors” or “supporters”, and while welcome to take an interest in governance and attend meetings etc, would no longer have a legal role to play.

The Advisory Committee of Chairs plus one from Regional Committees disappeared: at the time of the change, at least three of the eleven committees had ceased to meet, and over the course of the next four years, all but two had effectively wound up. The appointment of paid Charity staff in the 1980s to raise funds and awareness and to carry

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out case work had gradually undermined the purpose of the committees. The closure of the homes in the late 90s deprived many of them of a focus. The amalgamation of the remaining area committees into regional ones had hastened their demise.

The only active committees remaining are London and Northern Ireland. The latter reflects a different relationship with an autonomous Northern Ireland Civil Service, and serves a useful liaison purpose as well as, historically, being prolific fundraisers. The former concentrates on fundraising in Central London. The wide geographical dispersion of all the others made continuance pointless: it was left to those involved to recognise the fact over the next three years rather than forcing change on them.

At the time of writing, moves are under way to make the next logical changes to the Charity’s governance in line with the proposed abolition of Associated Organisation status, which would reduce the numbers eligible to vote on the Charity’s Council by over 50%. It is likely that in 2015 the Charity will, like many others, move to a position in which the governance is vested in the Board of Trustees who will themselves be responsible for all matters, including the appointment of new Board members.

OTHER ORGANISATIONS Relations with other Civil Service organisations have fluctuated over the years.

The Civil Service Insurance Society is the Charity’s closest ally. The CSIS Charity Fund is now the Charity’s largest individual donor. Its generous support for the Charity dates

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back very many years, and the two organisations work together in a mutually supportive manner.

The Retirement Fellowship, which separated from the Charity in the 1960s, has been a close partner. Sporadic attempts have been made by the Cabinet Office to persuade the two organisations to merge once more principally as a means of reducing the grant in aid given to both. The funding review held in 2009, which reduced the funding received by the Charity to £100k per year and is shortly to cease all funding to the Retirement Fellowship, effectively ended such attempts, which were not perceived by either organisation as being in their interests.

The Charity had worked sporadically with other Civil Service-related organisations: the Sports Council, CS Healthcare, the Motoring Association, Benenden Healthcare etc.

The relationship has become more difficult as the aims of the different organisations have departed from their origins. Most are no longer exclusively serving civil servants and their dependents, but have been forced by changing circumstances to become semi or wholly commercial organisations aimed at a wider market. Some, as in the case of CSIS and CSMA, actually compete with each other.

Thus while during the 1990s, efforts were still made to gain publicity and access jointly, this became more problematic. The last concerted attempt at joint action was brokered in the mid 2000s when an enterprise entitled TEAM was set up, which linked the Charity, CSIS, CS Healthcare and CSSC in an attempt to appeal to a wider Civil Service audience.

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Even though it was launched with a very high profile endorsement from the Cabinet Secretary, it quickly became obvious that organisations which struggled to reach civil servants under their own brands would have even less success through the filter of an unknown brand with no financial muscle to undertake marketing etc.

Opportunistic attempts at liaison, as for example in an attempt to influence the newly formed Civil Service Pensions mutual MyCSP, have only served to reveal the very different positions of the organisations concerned. It has become obvious that the Charity, with its clear and largely unaltered aims, cannot afford to conflate its message to civil servants by working with organisations whose purpose is less clear.

OTHER FUNDSUntil recently, most departments of state and other major bodies within the Civil Service had their own welfare funds. As part of the changes that took place with the disposal of the Homes, the Chairman and Director visited Permanent Secretaries of those departments with independent Benevolent funds to explain the advantages of merger with the main Civil Service fund.

Permanent Secretaries did not agree at that time, but when Departmental changes occurred – the various Funds were absorbed. Significant sums included £830k received from the DH&SS Welfare Charity taken over in 1999, the £360k from the DfE in 2003, and most significantly £2.1m from the Customs & Excise Family Charity in 2005. In some cases such as PSA, funds were passed over on privatisation. The process has continued and the Charity still occasionally receives a windfall of this type.

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THE NAME - REBRANDINGThe issue of the Charity’s name and brand had been an issue for many years. There are references to it in Charity reports and documents, and as recently as 2004, the report on the AGM states that “there was discussion about changing the name of the Fund to something more modern/attractive. This is “work in progress” and is one of the subjects the working group looking at the image of the Charity will be considering”.

The group referred to did not deal with a name change, although significant changes were made to the Charity’s branding and the manner in which it was presented. On this and other occasions, the name remained the “elephant in the room”.

There was more or less a consensus view that the Civil Service Benevolent Fund was not an ideal name for a modern occupational charity, but with no obvious alternative proposed, there was no consensus as to what any change should involve. Repeatedly the issue was shelved: the 2004 review was no exception. A comprehensive follow-up marketing exercise undertaken in 2008 revealed significant shortcomings in perceptions and understanding of the Charity.

Following the change in governance and structure that took place in 2010, with change occurring rapidly in other parts of the charitable sector, and increasing evidence that the Charity’s potential supporters and beneficiaries simply did not understand what it was for or what it did, the decision was taken that the identity of the Charity should be the subject of a fundamental review in which all options, including name change, were to be considered open.

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In 2011, with the pro bono help of the soon-to-disappear Central Office of Information, research was commissioned to look at all aspects of the Charity’s identity and presentation. The first stage looked at whether change was considered necessary and in what respect. As well as looking at perceptions, it also asked civil servants what their expectations were of the Charity. Having established overwhelmingly that the Charity was not getting its message across under its present name and branding, the second stage looked at how the identity might change.

Not surprisingly, the findings were that the name needed to reflect what the Charity did. It needed to answer the question – what is the Civil Service Benevolent Fund? The answer, while obvious, was not the catchiest or most popular name, but the Charity for Civil Servants was found to resonate most strongly with those on whom various names were tested.

A brand is not just about a name, it is about the way in which an organisation presents itself. Accordingly it was planned that the change of name would coincide with other changes and modernisation of the Charity’s image. An important component of this was the introduction of the new strap-line to accompany the new name, ‘For You, By You’, emphasising the unique nature of the Charity in that it is almost entirely funded and supported by the very group – civil servants – that it exists to support.

Understandably the change, which was agreed by the Board in March 2012 and launched two months later, while overwhelmingly well received was not universally welcomed. In particular some older supporters disliked the use of the term “charity”. But in general the new identity

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and name has proved most successful. Staff presenting the Charity no longer face the query – what exactly is the Benevolent Fund?

ASSOCIATED ORGANISATIONS & EXPANSIONThe Civil Service endured major structural change within the 1980s which saw the introduction of arms-length executive agencies, non departmental public bodies and other quasi-autonomous Government organisations.

The Rules of the Fund had long contained some flexibility in terms of eligibility which had always been at the discretion of the Committee of Management. This was reflected in the Constitution in the 1983 Rules was for a “Benevolent Society which is charitable composed of members of the Civil Service of the Crown and employees of approved public bodies”. It referred to members as being “Civil Servants of the Crown or employed by an organisation or approved public body considered by the Committee of Management for this purpose as being part of or connected with the Civil Service.”

During the early part of this process in the early 80s, such organisations were known as Fringe Bodies. It is perhaps not surprising given the way in which the Charity was constituted and governed that the issue of eligibility was seen through the prism of organisation rather than the individual’s position. Bodies, in the words of the 1986 history, “were invited to remain in membership of the Fund so that their staff could benefit as though they were still civil servants and of course become contributing members.”

Associated Organisations were defined in the 1985 Rules as: “a body which is not part of the UK Civil Service but which

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carries out a public function or a function previously carried out within the Civil Service and/or receives Government funding to carry out its function”

This has evolved to the version in our most recent (2010) mem & arts which reads: “any organisation, agency or body closely connected to the Civil Service, or providing a public service such that its employees may be considered to provide a public function similar to that of Civil Servants, in each case as determined by the Trustees and which has agreed in writing with the Charity for the provision of assistance to its staff and their dependants on terms determined by the Trustees from time to time.”

In 1986 there were 42 Associated Organisations mainly from the ranks of NDPBs employing about 73,000 staff. As well as being amusing to quote that “there are a goodly proportion of members in the Traffic Warden section which may bring some comfort to those civil servants who are booked for parking illegally in London”, it exemplifies the sheer range of those deemed to be covered by virtue of their employers’ willingness to stay “in membership”, which involved paying a fee proportionate to that received by the Charity in the so-called “welfare grant” received annually from the Cabinet Office on behalf of the mainstream Civil Service.

We do not have a precise record of the thinking behind the decision in 1987 to formalise what became known as “Associated Organisation” status, but the principle of the employer making a contribution to enable staff in organisations which are not directly managed by Departments of State to come under the umbrella of the Charity remains, determined by a formula designed to

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balance contributions made not only by the Cabinet Office but also the level of donations from civil servants, and was made more complex by the 2005 rule change which formalised the need for a written agreement, and by implication a financial transaction, between employers and the Charity. This was again reflected in the changes made in 2010.

Dealing with these organisations has not been easy. First there is the obvious question of eligibility. Organisations change status from time to time, and for the Charity’s service providers there have been difficulties in determining who exactly entitled to support. Second, there is the anomalous position of the Charity’s development staff soliciting donations from staff whose employer is in theory paying what amounts to a membership fee and the obvious ethical issue associated with this. Third, and perhaps most important, large numbers of staff in NDPBs whose employers chose not to sign up to AO status have been denied the benefits of the Charity available to staff in similar employment situations but who are in AOs.

Associated Organisation status has anyway proved a movable feast. Currently there are just under fifty, but most of the larger organisations, such as the Metropolitan Police Staff – hence the traffic wardens – have pulled out over the years, usually for budgetary reasons. This trend is continuing.

At the time of writing, a proposal has been accepted by the Board of Trustees by which AO status would be abolished, and the coverage of the Charity would be extended to all those bodies classified by the Cabinet Office and the National Governments/Executives of the UK as “public

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bodies”, excluding the NHS, Armed Services, Police and Emergency Services, Local Government and employees of organisations in the private sector working on public services.

This is clearly what the Committee of Management hoped to achieve in the 1980s, but their intention was and continues to be frustrated by a perceived need, no longer justified by circumstances, to recoup money from NDPBs as an employment group.

Through this change the coverage of the Charity will increase by about 100,000 individuals in work, plus their dependents. At a time of Civil Service shrinkage, this step is in line with other significant decisions such as those taken in 1947 to broaden the Charity’s coverage to non members, in 1979 to widen the scope of the Charity to include “industrials”, or to close the nursing and residential homes in 1997.

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Fundraising and Awareness/Communication

In 1987 a major piece of research was commissioned on the Fund and the Civil Service. Some of its conclusions include:

• 28% of civil servants said they contributed to the Fund• 92% said they knew about it. • CSBF members tend to be old rather than young people,

women rather than men, senior/middle rather than junior grades and long serving rather than new entrants

• Membership is highest in the Inland Revenue and DHSS and lowest in the Fringe Bodies

• It is very low among industrial grades

They are interesting in that while age and other factors have not changed, the staff profile has reversed, with the support among senior and middle grades now proportionately much lower than among administrative grade staff.

The research coincided with the emergence of a professional fundraising function that replaced the former voluntary/retired individuals who had undertaken recruitment of donors in addition to what took place in workplaces. In 1986 fundraising teams, nine staff, for the North and South were recruited and began full time operations in 1987. They were recruited on a trial basis on short term contracts: Marion Gemmell and Kevin Leech are still going strong!

The snapshot of their first year makes interesting reading. They collected 38,000 membership forms: while by no means all new members, the number is impressive. Twenty two percent of serving staff and ten percent of pensioners were

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donating, in some departments the percentage of serving staff being as high as 40%, in others less than 10%. Total membership in 1987 was 170,000 of whom 40,000 were retired, extraordinary figures when taken in the context of no professional fundraising function prior to this time.

The new teams had a highly successful few years. Able to take full advantage of the decision taken in 1980 to include “industrials” among those covered by the Charity, with the low membership highlighted by the 1987 research and with a largely blank canvas on which to operate, they increased membership within eight years to a high in 1994 of 227,000 donors/members. Although income was increasing significantly yearly during this period, there are also mentions of difficulties gaining access to sites, increasing privatisation, contractorisation and general resistance.

This high point, however, coincided with increasing financial difficulties over the homes, and 1995 saw for the first time a downturn in recruitment below the numbers needed to replace those leaving for whatever reasons, and over the next few years a pattern was established that regrettably continues in line with both falling Civil Service numbers and gradually increasing difficulties in gaining access to sites. The numbers over the next few years show this graphically (donor numbers in brackets) 1995 (228k), 1996 (220.5k), 1997 (214.8k), 1998 (206k) and so on to 2002 (180K), to 2004 (170k), with the trend continuing to the present (2014) total of just under 120k.

Actual income has stayed steady because of the higher levels of individual donation. As donors leave, they tend to be replaced by other donors giving more. Thus as numbers fall, amounts donated do not.

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The move to a professional fundraising function coincided with the introduction of payroll giving as a means of donating to charities and the significant decision was taken that in future all regular donations would be sought using this medium. While logical in many ways, it has led to some difficulties in that donors can easily be “lost” when either moving between departments or employers, leaving the Civil Service, or on retirement.

A brief experiment was tried in 2011 whereby donations were solicited via pre tax payroll giving rather than post tax. In theory, this method is more efficient, since it obviates the need to make a subsequent claim for gift aid, and also enables higher rate taxpayers to give more. In practice, inefficiencies in the payroll giving system overseen by HMRC plus disincentives built in because of transaction charges made by the payroll giving agencies involved meant that the experiment was swiftly abandoned.

At the time of producing this update, positive efforts are under way to switch as many donors as possible from giving through payroll to direct debit.

Early fundraising teams worked to a Fundraising Assistant Director, who was supported by a team at Fund House coordinating their work and organising a wide range of fundraising initiatives many of which continue in similar form today. Their work included responsibility for arranging publications and for publicity. Trading came, in 1996, under the auspices of a trading fund, CSBF Enterprises, set up under the sponsorship of CSIS with a view to meeting various legal requirements and avoiding VAT. Unfortunately while reasonably successful it does not have a track record of reaching the VAT threshold.

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The work of those based in the Charity’s HQ has evolved into a professional fundraising and communication team that supports the efforts of the fundraising teams throughout the UK. Area Development Managers, as they are currently called, are led by a manager, currently Marion Gemmell, supported by Relationship Development Managers who are responsible for opening doors and setting up campaigns in larger workplaces, a tactic used over many years but now systematised and embedded in the team’s operations.

Fundraising within and outside the workplace has continued throughout the period, and although endless ingenuity is displayed both by the Charity’s professional fundraising team and also by individuals and groups like the Northern Ireland and London Committees, it is increasingly challenging to invent new and eye-catching methods of engaging with civil servants, and of course it is extremely difficult to fundraise outside the Civil Service community. There is little public empathy for a cause supporting civil servants in need and within the Civil Service itself the focus that the Homes gave was lost when they were disposed of in the late 90s.

Legacies continue to provide a steady if unpredictable income stream although there are signs of decline. While it is impossible to determine any pattern in terms of motives in decisions to leave bequests, logically it would seem likely that, again, the loss of the Homes and the focus they provided in terms of services to older people and the loyalty they inspired have had a significant effect.

Communication has become increasingly important as the structural side of the Charity, and therefore its visible presence within the Civil Service via committees, welfare

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services, trades unions etc has diminished. A fascinating part of research for this historical update has been to note the move in less than thirty years from a world of factual annual reports duplicated from a document typed on a ribbon typewriter to the modern media of the Internet, social media and an altogether different style of presentation. The fast-moving world of Twitter, Facebook, Apps and other phenomena are a far cry from the days before mobile phones and the world wide web. With the current speed of change I suspect where we are now will appear equally dated long before another thirty years have passed.

The staff who have worked in the field raising awareness and funds for the Charity during the period that coincides with this update do a job which few would either envy or match and deserve a special mention. They consistently achieve excellent results that have been all the more laudable given the financial pressures on their target audiences since the pay freezes and “austerity” introduced in 2010. The Charity is fortunate indeed to have a bunch of positive staff who seem able to maintain their enthusiasm and professionalism in the face of indifference, inattention and sometimes downright rudeness.

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Corporate Matters

The story of the Charity’s “back offices” has followed a predictable path in line with the growth and complexity of its environment: changes to charity law, increasingly prescriptive employment regulations, health and safety, human rights, data protection, the development of information technology etc.

In the late 80s, the administration section at HQ handled much of the day-to-day back-up for the Fund, post, reception, property maintenance as well as servicing all the committees, subcommittees, trustee meetings and AGMs – with all the associated paperwork. In addition, one member of the team, who had some training in HR issues handled the Charity’s Personnel duties for nearly 600 staff, most of whom worked in the Homes. A full time personnel officer was only appointed in the early 90s.

The Finance Section dealt with bill payment, salaries, pension contributions and, of course preparation of the Statutory Accounts. Until 1993, there was no separate senior finance manager as the Fund Director had been an accountant. Robert Hubble joined as Assistant Director Finance and Central Services, and remained in post until 2009.

The Homes Section at Fund House was led by a Homes Assistant Director. He was supported by a Senior Matron/Manager dealing with professional nursing issues, and 2

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Homes Managers who each took supervisory responsibility for 5 Homes. Each Home had a Matron and there were up to 500 full and part-time nursing and ancillary staff in the Homes.

Charity HQ had moved from Central London to Watermead House in Sutton, a rented office, in 1973. In 1983, the Cabinet Office grant that had been made to pay the rent on this office was used as part of a package to buy Fund House in Cheam with a ten year mortgage. The premises were shared with Crown Housing Association until 1986.

During 1991/1992, the Management Committee agreed to the construction of an additional floor to the Cheam premises to house the Homes section more adequately, underlining the increase in staffing that had taken place over the preceding six years. The project required about half the staff to be housed in temporary accommodation several miles away for a year. A further upgrade to the building took place in 2011, when as well as installing much-needed air conditioning, offices were opened out into a more modern open-plan style.

With the demise of the homes, where possible staff were redeployed into the new service areas, particularly to help with applications for homes admission advice.

Through various iterations, corporate support for the Charity’s activities has evolved into its present structure of departments covering IT, HR, Finance and Information, Tax Claim and Facilities and Office Services.

Perhaps the greatest change in terms of administration and office environments has been the explosion in IT since the late 80s. At that stage there were two staff in the IT section

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who worked hard during the early 90s to develop internal e-mail, word processing and some IT support for a changing organisation in a fast-changing IT world. Payroll only moved onto a computer in the late 80s, and the payroll department managed most HR issues in the absence of separate department, which was not established until the early 90s. All other systems were manual until the early 90s when a system was purchased that computerised donor payments, and a further system automated payroll.

The late 90s saw the establishment of the Charity’s first website. By this stage a network was planned that would enable staff working remotely to have access to the computer systems that were now established to HAS and Fundraising.

In 2002 the decision was taken that a system would be developed that would enable the two sides of the Charity’s activities to interconnect by linking the HAS and donor systems. Suffice to say that this attempt mirrored some of the Civil Service’s efforts in developing bespoke functional IT systems by being unsuccessful and costing the Charity a great deal of money.

In 2009 the decision was finally taken to abandon the attempt and to stay with the system that had originally been purchased in 2001, ThankQ, which by this time had evolved to something much closer to the original requirement. In 2010 the system was upgraded and in 2014 a new bespoke Enquiry Process was implemented which reflected the changes to the Charity’s service model.

In line with the modernisation of the Charity’s brand with its new name, strap line etc, a radical redesign of the website took place in 2013/14 which allowed it to be based on a

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“mobile platform”, which enables users to have access via the brave new world of mobile communications, tablets etc.

The HR department, established properly in early 90s, with the appointment of a specialist manager following in 2003, has had to deal with an explosion of employment law and regulations and has overseen such additional areas as health and safety and data protection.

As the Charity has moved away from an employment model and terms and conditions that reflected the Civil Service rather than an independent charity, so also it has had to adapt to seismic changes to the world of pensions. The tax regime changes that were introduced in 1997 meant that a one-off additional payment of £1.16m had to be paid into the pension fund to meet a shortfall in 1999, and it became clear that the Fund would no longer be able to sustain the generous final salary scheme then in operation. Accordingly this defined benefit scheme was closed in 2004 and replaced by a still generous but less costly defined contribution scheme, which in turn was superseded in 2014 by a stakeholder pension scheme in line with new legislation.

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AUTHOR’S FOOTNOTE

I have hugely enjoyed my time running this wonderful Charity and working with the terrific people, both staff and volunteers/trustees, associated with it. When I leave it soon, it will be in the knowledge that it is secure for the moment and has options that should allow it to adapt to different and unpredictable circumstances.

When I joined the charity sector in 2008, a few months before coming to the Charity, I presumed that charities were resistant to change, and that this would particularly be the case in a charity established in 1886 and under the aegis of something as innately conservative as the Civil Service. It has been a pleasure to be proved wrong: with the assistance and support of some brilliant colleagues and trustees I have been privileged to lead a change process that has, I hope, improved the Charity, made it more fit for purpose and is about to increase the numbers of individuals eligible for its help.

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I also thought that the Charity would be a purely reactive organisation: to an extent this is of course true, the Charity exists to meet needs, but in fact we have been able to take the initiative in terms of introducing new services and service models that are leading innovation in the occupational charity sector. I wish I could claim credit for this and for having the vision to perceive what was needed and possible, but as so often, there has been a great deal of opportunism and others deserve the plaudits for providing the creative impetus. Where I believe we have scored is through being sufficiently agile and adaptable to make the best of our opportunities. We are well placed to continue doing so.

I should also pay tribute to my predecessors. In researching this update I have been impressed by the journey undertaken by the likes of Rosemary Doidge and Ian Rathjen. There have been periods of less advance than others, and some false leads have been pursued, but on the whole the journey has been positive and continuous.

Bon courage et bonne continuation.

January 2015

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This publication is correct as of January 2015

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