While such companies are "not for profit" for shareholders, they can work out well for the managers, and it's troubled that some seem to have self-selecting Trustee bodies.

I see from the accounts that Freemantle's highest paid manager's salary went from the £60-70k range to £90-100k in 2 years (2004 to 2006), an annualised increase somewhere between  13.4% and 29.1%, despite Freemantle's evident financial stress. Presumably that manager is the Chief Executive Carole Sawyers.

I also see from the 2006 accounts that new "Trustees are appointed by the Board" and that "The Trustees are also Directors", which appears to make the Trustees effectively a self-selecting body. Doesn't seem that great a governance structure to me. The Trustees are unpaid, so are probably very dependent on the managers for advice.

I also see that Freemantle discovered a £22.9 million pension deficit in FY 2005/6 when they adopted FRS 17. For an organisation with a turnover of about £29 million, that's a large deficit, and is I guess why they are putting the squeeze on staff pay and holidays, to make more "surplus" to cover increasing pension contributions. This pension issue wasn't stated in the previous accounts, or mentioned there as a risk, so it looks to have been a surprise for Freemantle - was that incompetence?

It seems this pension deficit is from the council superannuation scheme that Freemantle joined when council staff were transfered in. I wonder what would happen to ex-council staff accrued pensions should Freemantle go bust? I can see why public-sector staff would resist these "privatisations" of staff.

There do seem to be differing stories on what the new terms are.  UNISON says:

wages and pensions have been slashed by up to 30%, their hours increased and sick pay and holiday entitlement reduced.

but the Chief Executive says:

the new agreements were based on basic pay being frozen for three years, holiday entitlement being cut from 39 days to 29, and the reduction of sick pay arrangements to bring Barnet into line with the trust's national standard of three months on full pay.

I must say Freemantle's version does sound more plausible, though still extremely harsh, especially if staff had been promised they would stay on council-like T&Cs after the transfer. Anyone know the full story?

Either way it doesn't look like it meets Freemantle's stated key strategy of "Maintaining a skilled, well-trained and experienced workforce."

An intersting aspect of this is that a little before the transfer of the council care activities to Fremantle, Barnet had carried out a Single Status Agreement assessment, as required by law, to equalise pay. This generally improves the pay and terms of women dominated employment like care activities, to those of generally male dominated employment with a similar level of responsibilities.  This is probably why the ex-Barnet employees had better pay and terms than Freemantle's other employees, who probably transfered in before being subject to a Single Status Agreement.

So transfering an activity out of direct council control, and the new employer reducing pay, effectively defeats council equal pay under a Single Status Agreement.  Wonderful! This is probably a driver for privatisation of council jobs, divide and less-equal pay, so cheaper bids.