Regulator issues charity pay warning; Boardroom pay at charities ‘not excessive’, claim charity chief executives; Art exhibition comes from Cairo to St Paul’s; Gay couple may sue Church of England to wed in church
Regulator issues charity pay warning
BBC News – Large salaries paid to charity staff could “bring the charitable world into disrepute”, a regulator has warned.
Charity Commission chairman William Shawcross said organisations must ask if pay levels are “really appropriate”.
The Daily Telegraph reported 30 staff at 14 leading UK foreign aid charities were paid £100,000 or more last year.
Charity leaders’ organisation Acevo said the salaries for these “very demanding jobs” were not excessive compared to other sectors.
Mr Shawcross, who was appointed last year on a £50,000 annual salary to work two days a week, said the commission could not tell charities how much they should pay their executives, but urged them to be cautious.
“In these difficult times, when many charities are experiencing shortfalls, trustees should consider whether very high salaries are really appropriate, and fair to both the donors and the taxpayers who fund charities,” he said.
“Disproportionate salaries risk bringing organisations and the wider charitable world into disrepute.”
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Boardroom pay at charities ‘not excessive’, claim charity chief executives
Daily Telegraph – Boardroom pay at top aid charities is “not excessive” despite Telegraph revelations of a sharp increase in executives paid more than £100,000 a year, the body which represents charity chief executives has claimed.
Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of charity leaders organisation Acevo, also said that criticism from the charities’ regulator was “deeply unhelpful”.
The news came after William Shawcross, the chairman of the charity watchdog Charity Commission, accused charity leaders of some of the biggest aid charities of bringing “the wider charitable world into disrepute” by accepting large pay rises.
Research by The Daily Telegraph found that the number of executives receiving six-figure salaries at Britain’s 14 leading foreign aid charities has risen by nearly 60 per cent from 19 to 30 over the past three years, despite many of them seeing a fall in donations.
The charities make up the Disasters Emergency Committee, a 50 year old group which comes together to coordinate their work at times of worldwide tragedy. The number of staff at the charities on salaries of over £60,000 jumped from by 16 per cent to 192 between 2010 and 2012.
But in an interview on the BBC Today programme, Sir Stephen said that charity pay was “simply” not “an issue for donors”. Sir Stephen Bubb denied that donors were put off by large pay awards to top charity managers.
He said: “This simply isn’t an issue for donors. Donors are more concerned about the outcomes, the performance and the efficiency of these organisations.
“To keep talent, really strong people, at the top of these organisations they need to be paid properly.
“These are still not excessive salaries when you compare them to the public and private sectors.” The average salary for a charity chief executive was £58,000, he said.
He added: “The big national and international charities are very demanding jobs and we need to attract the best talent to those jobs and that’s what we do.”
A spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee said the salaries were “broadly in line with pay at other charities of comparable size”.
But Priti Patel, a Conservative MP who helped to compile the figures, said: “Hard-pressed taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent and will be shocked to see so many highly paid executives in charities that are dependent on public funds.
“A balance must be struck between minimising overheads and ensuring a robust management system is in place.”
The research found that sector eleven of the executives were paid more than the Prime Minister David Cameron’s £142,500 a year in 2013, which is used by ministers as a Whitehall high water mark to keep pay low.
Mr Shawcross told The Daily Telegraph: “It is not for the Commission to tell charities how much they should pay their executives. That is a matter for their trustees.
“However in these difficult times, when many charities are experiencing shortfalls, trustees should consider whether very high salaries are really appropriate, and fair to both the donors and the taxpayers who fund charities.
“Disproportionate salaries risk bringing organisations and the wider charitable world into disrepute.”
The analysis also shows that these charities are heavily reliant on public funds, having received over £1.1 billion of public money over the past three years from a range of sources, including, the Government, European Union, United Nations and councils.
Priti Patel, a Conservative MP who helped to compile the figures, added: “Hard-pressed taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent and will be shocked to see so many highly paid executives in charities that are dependent on public funds.”
Art exhibition comes from Cairo to St Paul’s
An interfaith art exhibition promoting peace and compassion is coming to St Paul’s Cathedral from Cairo in Egypt. The CARAVAN exhibition features 25 life-size painted donkeys and will be on display from August 30 to September 23.
The donkeys were first exhibited at the Anglican Church of St John the Baptist in Cairo, a centre for interfaith dialogue, before being placed around Cairo.
They are made of fibreglass and were sculpted by Egyptian artist Reda Abdel Rahman. The donkey symbolises peace in both Christianity and Islam, and in Egypt they represent the poor.
The Reverend Canon Mark Oakley, Chancellor of St Paul’s, said: “There are over 40 million donkeys on this earth and 96% of them live alongside the poorest people of the world. They are known and loved for their hard work, resilience, loyalty and stubbornness.
“They have been used for the best and worst of human intentions: from carrying the war wounded to medical help at Gallipoli, to bearing explosives to kill in today’s war zones. Jesus chose a donkey to symbolise the divine humility. Similarly in the Islamic tradition, the Prophet was carried by Ya`fūr.
“This exhibition, by both Muslim and Christian artists from Egypt, calls us to remember the peoples of that country today and what can be achieved together rather than apart. It also, at a time when both Muslims and Christians suffer persecution for their faith in many places, reminds us that just as the donkeys journey together in the Cathedral towards the Holy, so humans only become spiritually alive when they travel together in peace and with compassion.”
The donkey sculptures were decorated by Muslim and Christian artists, and are going on display at St Paul’s before being auctioned by Sotheby’s.
Profits from the sale of the donkeys will go to charities serving some of the poorest people in Egypt.
The Reverend Paul-Gordon Chandler, Rector of Cairo’s Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist from 2003-2013 and founder of CARAVAN, said: “Believing that the arts can be one of the most effective mediums of building bridges of understanding, respect and friendship between East and West, their creed and cultures, the exhibition seeks to communicate the important message of tolerance between Christians and Muslims, living together in peace and with compassion, a message that comes ‘out of Egypt’ for the world.”
The Honorable Dominik Furgler, Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Kingdom (and formerly Swiss Ambassador to Egypt), said: “I am particularly delighted to be directly associated to this wonderful initiative. In a world and time where sectarian tension, prejudice or ignorance seem to prosper, we must do whatever we can to further dialogue and the mutual knowledge about our religious traditions and convictions. This exhibition is doing just that, with the arts uniting us as a language of love and peace.”
The exhibition is being sponsored by the Embassy of Switzerland, and supported by the British Council.
Mark Stephens, British Council Country Director, Egypt, said: “We are delighted that the CARAVAN Festival of the Arts has forged this link with St Paul’s Cathedral to bring these beautiful decorated donkeys to a London audience. One of the British Council’s goals is to connect people through the arts, which is why we have supported the festival, which aims to use the arts to bridge cultures. We hope these artworks will generate as much interest in London as they did in Cairo.”
Gay couple may sue Church of England to wed in church
The British government’s promise that no religious organization will be forced to conduct same-sex weddings following the passage of a gay marriage bill may soon be tested.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 42, and his partner, Tony, 49 — millionaires who run a surrogacy company in Britain and the U.S. — have been a high-profile couple since 1999 when they became the first gay couple to be named on the birth certificate of their child.
Now they have five children by five surrogate mothers. All the children are American citizens born in California.
While planning for a sixth, they told the Daily Mail they plan to sue the Church of England to get married there.
“I want to go to my church and marry my husband,” said Drewitt-Barlow in an interview published Friday (Aug. 2). “It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognize us.”
Referring to the legislation that received the queen’s approval last month he said: “The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the Church.”
The couple own a company based in Essex called the British Surrogacy Centre. It recently opened a branch in Los Angeles.
The new law stipulates that no religious denomination will be forced to carry out such services.
But that’s not good enough for the couple.
“We need to convince the church that it is the right thing for our community for them to recognize us as practicing Christians,” said Drewitt-Barlow.
“It upsets me because I want it so much — a big lavish ceremony, the whole works. I am a Christian — a practicing Christian — my children have all been brought up as Christians and are part of the local parish church in Danbury.”
Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic Church recognizes gay marriages. Other religious groups, including Orthodox Jews, Hindus and Sikhs do not perform such marriages.
Some religious bodies, including Quakers, Unitarians and Reform Jews, say they plan to conduct same-sex weddings when the law goes into effect next year.
The threat of court action against the established Church of England — whose supreme governor is Queen Elizabeth II — has provoked a strong reaction from the Coalition for Marriage, which led opposition to the bill.
Director Colin Hart said Drewitt_Barlow’s comments clearly shows that churches are certain to face litigation.
In a statement, he said: “The ink’s not even dry on the bill and churches are already facing litigation. We warned Mr. Cameron (Britain’s prime minister) this would happen, we told him he was making promises that he couldn’t possibly keep. He didn’t listen. . Mr. Cameron’s chickens are coming home to roost and it will be ordinary people with a religious belief who yet again fall victim to the totalitarian forces of political correctness.”