> Shelter management who may or may not be paid huge amounts of money

Taking a nose at Shelter's accounts, the highest paid employee salary went from the £70k-80k band in 2004 to the £90k-100k band in 2006. So this increase averages as an increase of somewhere between 6.06%/year and 19.5%/year.

Over the same 2 year period average staff salaries appear to have gone up from £21,699 to £21,964, or about 0.6%/year. (2004: £18,401,000/848; 2006: £22,206,000/1011) [caveat this uses "average full-time staff numbers" - not clear if this is FTE so handling part-time staff costs properly]

Does seem salary policies have favoured top management recently, though to be fair the charity's income increased from £31,689,000 to £36,522,000 2004 to 2006: 7.35%/year.

Well, if you think this analysis might do some good, here's my last speculative work-in-progress.

I'm wondering if some of Shelter's senior management are being hired on a consultancy contract basis, rather than employment; a consequence of which is that their salary bracket is no longer included in the accounts.

Shelter has a chief executive + 6 people on the senior management team, probably giving 7 high paid staff.

However the number of employees in the £60k-100k salary range dropped from 5 in 2005/6 to 3 in 2006/7.

Adam Sampson on his blog comments "as anyone who has tried to recruit a Finance Director with experience of helping to run a £50 million organisation will know, the sort of people you need will also be attractive to private sector organisations willing to pay far higher salaries than we are", presumably about the recruitment of Barry Shine, director of finance in August 2006. Hence you would expect an extra high earner listed in the 2006/7 accounts; instead you get 2 less. Odd.

Therefore I am wondering if the 2 fewer higher earners indicates they were replaced, not with employees, but managers working under a consultancy contract. Not only does this potentially give the managers some tax+NI advantages, it also means these salaries are not listed in the accounts. The two most recent changes in the senior management are:

Barry Shine, Director of Finance, in  August 2006

Diana Fawcett, Director of Services, in 2007

From previous jobs, you'd expect both these to be high earners.

Now looking again at the accounts at note 6, Finance Dept indirect support costs appear to have gone up from £833k in 2005/6 to £1,399k in 2006/7. Of course there are many possible reasons for this, but one possibility is that part of this increase is for a significant management consultancy contract for the director.

Maybe some of the staff in dispute might know something about this possibility. Otherwise, if anyone want to investigate further, a companies house search on directors names might show up a consultancy company.

I asked Adam Sampson on his blog "are some of the senior management team hired on a consultancy contract basis" two days ago, but my comment still "is awaiting moderation".

For completeness, here are the higher-paid employee counts in £10k brackets from recent accounts:

Year £40+k, 50k+, 60k+, 70k+, 90k+

2002/3     8, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0 

2003/4     7, 3, 1, 1, 0, 0

2004/5     ?, 6, 2, 0, 1, 0

2005/6     ?, ?, 2, 2, 0, 1

2006/7     ?, ?, 1, 1, 0, 1

I dont think we should overly criticise senior staff at Shelter - they are worth the money paid to them as they are responsible for a large organisation with a  multi-million pound income. Besides if you compare the staff salaries at Shelter with private companies they would seem very small in comparison.

Even comparing them with other public sector salaries they do not seem to be overpaid - a director of housing or social services in a local authority would be paid £120,000+ and even some principle officers (second or thrid tier of staff down) would be paid more than the shelter directors. Just look at MPs and government ministers - they are paid lots more.

I'm sure that senior staff at Shelter do not actually want to make these custs they are being forced into it  by declining income or a forecast in decline of income

The issue here is that the Shelter management are taking steps to ensure that the charity survives in the face of reduced income from contracts for advice services. As the original poster said the issue is that local authorities are opting to commission cheaper organisations such as Capita to provide housing advice rather than Shelter which has built up considerable expertise in this area over the past 40 years. Commissioners need to look beyond the immediate figures to the quality of the service that they will receive.

The trouble I have in general with many charities are that they are undemocratic institutions, having neither an open membership nor shareholders that can hold the management/trustees to account; the trustees are essentially a self-selecting body. The control of such charities seems open to capture by self-interested groups.

AFAICS Shelter has such a governence structure. They do not invite the public to become members, instead call for "supporters". It seems Trustees are the Board members, and "Applications for Board membership are invited by external advertisement. Applicants are interviewed by the Nominations Committee and are appointed according to relevant skills, competencies and experience."

I think charitable status should be contingent upon an organisation having an acceptable form of democratic control.