Burngreave Community Action Trust (BCAT) is set to down-size after funders New Deal have expressed concerns about the organisation. The following conditions have been set by the New Deal funders:
Existing Trustees must resign and the organisation relaunched with new elections.
Only four posts essential to the support and development of Burngreave Community Action Forum will be funded.
Where job descriptions are fundamentally different to existing posts they must be subject to open recruitment.
By the end of one year BCAT must have secured 50% match funding.
A New Deal rep to have a non-voting seat on the new board of trustees.
Serious issues
Justifying the conditions, BNDfC Chief Executive John Clark said:
“The evaluation reports produced by BCAT themselves and the funders Objective One, identified serious issues with governance, management, delivery of projects and procedures and processes. BCAT has been in an improvement plan since the beginning of 2005 because it wasn’t meeting its outputs, at the end of this there were still significant concerns.”
The Charity Commission has stated that it was unusual for funders to impose conditions which meant constitutional changes and took away autonomy, but trustees have to take whatever decision is in the charity’s best interest.
BCAT told the Messenger it had: “Encountered a number of difficulties. However, many of these issues have been addressed and it is the intention of BCAT to carry on and strengthen its vital work, building the capacity of individuals and groups in the community; whilst building on the work of Burngreave Community Action Forum (BCAF).”
‘Squalid tactics'
At the recent BCAF Quarterly Forum meeting, attended by 50 people, BCAF Chair Kevin Hartney accused New Deal of attempting a ‘hostile takeover’ and being ‘an irresponsible and unaccountable private company employing the squalid cut-throat tactics of the market’.
John Clark insisted that the conditions were in BCAT’s best interest however:
“In principle we want a strong local organisation to be a development trust, and we have set the conditions to improve the situation.”
The Messenger understands that BCAT Trustees have recently agreed to accept the conditions imposed on future funding by New Deal.