Friday, 5 December 2008

I drove this morning to Letchworth for a meeting of the Trustees Together group. Jonathan Moore of SAVO has done some excellent work drafting a paper on regional issues. In discussion, we identified the damage done to Trusteeship by the concept of “the Third Sector”; until this Frankenstein creation, trustees had to act in the best interests of their group, use their commonsense and not derive personal benefits from the charity. Things were relatively straightforward. But now, many trustees think they can be employees of their charities, and some even want to pay themselves retainers or “dividends” for acting as directors. The waters are now hopelessly muddied and the concept of altruism has been sullied for a whole generation. It was difficult enough to swallow “the Third Way” but I will probably never forgive the Labour Party for foisting on us “the Third Sector”.