Some former and serving volunteers at the charity Cats Protection are complaining about management decisions that are undermining the whole purpose of the charity, so states the Daily Mail. Can we believe this?
We are told that these so called whistleblowers are complaining that management have changed the charity’s policies and cutback on some essential services despite the charity’s income remaining healthy and stable at £62m, which makes the cutbacks difficult to understand unless the changes are about making the charity more efficient.
Spending on frontline services such as the quality of vaccinations and the inspection of potential cat adopter’s homes are being reduced or cut back.
The volunteers who have spoken out say that the charity is putting profit before cat welfare. If this is true, it sounds similar to the complaints about the RSPCA. Are charities becoming too profit conscious in a more competitive world?
The fantastic volunteers who are the backbone of Cats Protection request funds for services such as neutering and vaccinations. The volunteers who ran the Cardiff branch appears to have been over-efficient and too keen. They requested £12,000 to fund neutering services. The Cats Protection neutering service is a fundamental part of the charity. It is vital to slow the creation of unwanted cats. Apparently, the Cardiff branch was told they were doing too much neutering and were closed down as a consequence. It was a devastating shock to the volunteers there as you can imagine. The brach had been open for 23 years.
‘They said we shouldn’t have been neutering so many cats and that we were helping too many people, which was now unaffordable. So they were closing us down…
Some of the 8,500 staff have been made redundant and 7 branches closed. The general theme of the complaints from within the charity is that the funding is in place and the finances are healthy so why is management cutting back on what are considered to be essential services?
I have a huge admiration for Cats Protection. The story of Chester’s rescue and recovery highlights the excellent work they do for cats. As a result I find these complaints slightly difficult to accept. However, the volunteers are decent people so what they say should be taken seriously and acted upon.
The story appears to only come from the Daily Mail. All other sites that I have visited that report this story are just parasitic sites that receive news feeds and then link back to the source, in this case the Daily Mail.
My conclusion at this stage is that the Daily Mail have hyped this up. Cats Protection management may have been heavy handed but I sense that what they are doing is to try and spend the money more efficiently. We don’t have the full story. I could be wrong. Does anyone have some insider information?
Associated: Quiz on Cats Protection.
Sarah, do you think that top management give enough encouragement and recognition to the volunteers? Are they a bit remote?
I think you have touched on something there Babz. Top management may be becoming a little complacent about the enormous value of the volunteers who are Cats Protection. Without them it would not exist. They need to be recognised, rewarded and encouraged.
Backward employer 😉 !
It’s also possible that HQ have stopped paying an allowance to shelter wardens at branches and require the branches to fund wardens directly. Paid wardens would be “staff” on a payroll. This put me in a bind when I covered for a weekend warden’s holiday – I couldn’t accept payment (could affect my taxes), but HQ rules said they had to pay me (solution: I never cashed their cheques). If that rule has changed, then it will look as though they’ve axed staff.
As with so many charities the best thing to do with your donation is to get it to the ones that really do the graft and that is the volunteers, not the ones who sit behind gleaming desks looking at spread sheets on computers, Ruth and I have been supporters of our local CP for many years and have seen first hand the absolute dedication of Marion and Steven, many a time using their own money in times of great need. I don’t think that CP headquarters realise that the great reputation of Cats Protection is built on the work that the branch co-ordinators and volunteers do, unpaid, day in day out year after year after year.
True Michael, it doesn’t have the nickname “Daily Fail” for nothing