Keeping Up With The Joneses

I said in an earlier post that I would try and find time to look at the OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator) Report into GERA - the now dissolved Glasgow East Regeneration Agency, a charitable organisation based in the east end of Glasgow as its name suggests.

As regular readers will recall the outgoing chief executive of GERA received a bumper pay off - which included a 'discretionary' payment aimed at boosting the CEO's already substantial pension package.

Here are some extracts from the OSCR Report:

Reasons for inquiry

"In January 2012 we became aware of reports in the national press about an alleged high value severance package agreed by the charity trustees of GERA for the charity's chief executive when he was made redundant on 31 March 2011.

"We had already begun inquiries into the charity when we received a complaint relating to the press reports." 

We are publishing this report on the outcome of our inquiry in response to the press interest in the matter and to make our findings available to the wider charitable sector."   

Findings

"The decision to augment the Chief Executive's pension"

"Our inquiries established that the severance package contained three elements. One was a statutory redundancy payment the charity was required to pay. Another was the strain on the fund payment to the pension scheme. This was a condition relating to the terms of employment agreed between the charity and the Chief Executive when he took up his post and, as such, the charity was required to make this payment as well."

"The final element of the severance package was a payment to augment the Chief Executive's period of membership of the Strathclyde Pension Scheme by six and two third years. From the information provided it appears that this discretionary element of the severance package was agreed by the charity trustees in recognition of the Chief executive's performance of his role within GERA and on the basis that it would put him on a par with some Glasgow City Council employees who had recently left employment with Glasgow City Council as a result of reductions in public sector funding, although the (GERA) Chief Executive was not employed by Glasgow City Council." 

"The cost of this discretionary augmentation agreed by the charity trustees amounted to £232,708 from the charity's assets."  

Now there is more to follow - but I have stopped writing for a while in order to recover my jaw - which dropped to the floor as I typed those words.

Is it just me or does anyone else find it absolutely astonishing - that the alleged treatment of some unspecified and unnamed employees within Glasgow City Council could be used as a comparator for the GERA Chief Executive - who wasn't even employed by the City Council? 

Seems to me that 'Keeping up with the Joneses' - is hardly a good reason for being so wildly generous with funds intended to alleviate poverty - and support charitable causes in the east end of Glasgow.