How to handle bad behaviour in a charity?

Doesn't it just Jalima. Speaking as a regular and generous donator to several charities, I'm just sorry that this whole debacle has tarnished Oxfam and, like others have said upthread, it's a concern that people who would ordinarily have donated to them, may now decide not to. The bad management of the whole affair has let it's staff, volunteers, donators and, more importantly, those who should have been protected and supported by them. I don't hope to see similar revelations about other charities.

For whatever reason, it seems that The Times and this government are bent on the pursuit of just one prey.

That's an interesting point, witz, and not one I'd thought of since it hadn't occurred to me that other charities would have similar skeletons in cupboards. Bit of a shock really, that idea.

If that is the case though—that the rot runs through most or all major charities that go to help out after disasters and with development ?—could not the Oxfam exposure exercise (whatever provoked it, be it naked anti-Oxfam sentiment or simply a lead that someone followed) be a good thing generally if it leads to a bit (preferably a lot) of cleaning up and greater transparency from such organisations?

As it is, it's as if such charities think that the end (helping at all) justifies putting up with a certain amount of sordid behaviour from charity workers.

Which is depressing.

Jalima wrote:

"Alexa to that I would add that charities should be more open about corrupt staff they 'allow to leave' to prevent them moving on to another sector and carry on as before."
I agree.

I feel angry with Oxfam for their inefficiency in employing the wrong sort of people. I'd have thought that the scandals in the RC Church would have alerted the Oxfam high-ups about the folly of protecting the institution at all costs.

Melanie Phillips on NGO avoidance of scrutiny because the aid sector is seen as inherently worthy and moral:

Wealthy charities need tougher watchdogs

Melanie PhillipsFebruary 13 2018, 12:01am,
The Oxfam scandal exposes how powerful non-governmental organisations can evade scrutiny

As the Oxfam scandal grows, questions have arisen about the role of the Charity Commission. This all happened under its nose. What’s the point of a regulator, one might ask, if it doesn’t properly regulate?

In 2011, Oxfam told the commission about an internal investigation into allegations of misconduct by charity staff involved in giving aid to Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. It said this related to “inappropriate sexual behaviour, bullying, harassment and the intimidation of staff”. It also stated, however, there had been “no allegations, or evidence, of any abuse of beneficiaries” or crimes against minors.

The commission was fooled. We now know Oxfam’s own report said staff members had used beneficiaries as prostitutes, some of whom were possibly under-age. Last year, after this newspaper raised a similar issue involving Oxfam, the charity told the commission that it had dealt with 87 allegations of sexual abuse by staff in 2016-17.

Given the 2011 claims, one might have thought these fresh allegations would have set off alarm bells — even concerns that these abuses might not be confined to Oxfam’s staff. They did not. True, in its report last December, the commission noted behaviour that did not measure up to Oxfam’s “culture and values” and identified “weaknesses in how trends in safeguarding allegations were picked up”.

Nevertheless, it seemed to believe that simply telling charities they needed to buck up their attitude towards such problems was enough. This was even though it was receiving about 1,000 reports a year related to safeguarding and sexual abuse.

Its response to this was to warn charities to take safeguarding more seriously and to ensure they were providing a trusted environment. According to Michelle Russell, the commission’s director of investigations, its role is to ensure that charities are dealing properly with safeguarding issues.

But what if they are not doing so? Ms Russell says the commission has to get charities to report any abuses because its relationship with them “requires them to be full and frank in dealing with the regulator”. Yet given their overriding concern not to frighten away donors, charities have good reason not to be full and frank. So how would the commission know unless it investigated these issues itself?

Back in 2011, the commission had a reputation of being spineless and hopelessly partisan on behalf of the charities it was supposedly regulating. Its chairman William Shawcross, who was appointed in 2012 and whose term shortly expires, tried to address this.

He brought in trustees from outside the charity sector and increased the use of statutory inquiries and powers more than tenfold. Last November, the National Audit Office praised the commission for “significant improvements”.

The problem, though, is wider and deeper. Priti Patel, the former international development secretary, told the BBC: “I knew this was going on . . . I made this our own agenda, I did my research, this [sex abuse] is well documented. I raised this directly with my department at the time.”

When she tried to raise these concerns during a speech at the United Nations last September, she said, her civil servants strongly pushed back. Senior officials told her that abuse had only been carried out by UN soldiers on peacekeeping missions, and to claim otherwise was “overstepping the mark”.

Ms Patel claims there is a “culture of denial” about exploitation in the aid sector. This is undoubtedly fed by the mindset that the charitable sector is inherently worthy and moral because it is all about doing good and even heroic works for those most in need.

At the charity commission, Michelle Russell says: “The presumption is that charities will be honest. They are not out there to make a private profit but have a wider social purpose”.

This belief that aid workers exist on a higher moral plane than the rest of us is regularly trotted out to defend international aid from well-sourced claims that the money is often misspent. The defence was aired again this week by Andrew Mitchell, a predecessor of Ms Patel’s as international development secretary.

He says Oxfam told his department about the safeguarding allegations but, again, not the full story. Yet the full story about the aid to Haiti, administered while he was in post, was that much of the £10 billion raised to rebuild the island was frittered away by the charities administering it.

Bodies like Oxfam have long since moved on from the traditional idea of charity to become huge non-governmental organisations. More than a decade ago Johns Hopkins University estimated that, if the NGO sector were a country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world with a global worth of more than $1 trillion a year.

The NGOs have become an enormously powerful fifth estate which uses the bully pulpit of conscience and emotional manipulation to lobby national governments and dominate the cultural climate.

Yet because of their charitable aura they are not held fully accountable. The Oxfam scandal has exposed this culture of impunity. As Priti Patel observes, however, this is but the tip of a sanctimonious and morally compromised iceberg which now needs to be hauled into view.

Does anyone know what percentage of Oxfam's income gets to the needy?

People are allowed to resign and are given glowing references. They are then employed by another charity (who are, frankly, deceived by the positive reference) that potentially sends them, and their kind, to other places in the world where vulnerable people may be exploited. I think Oxfam have admitted that at least one of their former employees, who was implicated in this scandal, has gone down this route. Why shouldn't Oxfam be exposed in this way?

I give to two cancer charities since my son-in-law's brother died from liver cancer. I never put anything in the 'charity' bags that come through the letter box since Rip Off Britain exposed what a money making scam that can be. Read the small print on the wrapper (I'm guessing they are now obliged by law to do this) to see how paltry is the donation that goes to the named charity. Tons of freely donated, used clothes are exported at great profit. If I have clothes to give, I take them straight to the charity shop. What they do with them is up to them. I use the bags for rubbish but have a drawer full of them!

Lizziepopbotle, only yesterday I got one of these purporting to be for NSPCC. I contacted NSPCC asking "is it genuine?" Very prompt positive reply from NSPCC. They do indeed contract ClothesAid to do these house to house collections for NSPCC.

I wouldn't usually have bothered, usually charity shop, but I have a big bundle of quite heavy good stuff to give away.

I use the bags for rubbish but have a drawer full of them! I fill those bags then take them to the charity shop.

I think the house collections give possibly 10% to the named charity?

Some charities will collect Alexa, we have donated furniture and the Red Cross will bring their van to collect it.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/02/13/systemic-failings-require-holistic-reforms-not-the-imposition-of-silence/

What do you think of the Charity Commission's position here?
Should it be investigating or investigated?

"Kate Osamor MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, said: “The Charity Commission and government departments have serious questions to answer: why did they take no action in response to concerns raised by Helen Evans in June 2015 and August 2015? Are there other whistleblowers that have brought safeguarding concerns to the Charity Commission only to be ignored?

“It is crucial that we now understand how far this appalling scandal reaches, and whether the Charity Commission is operating effectively as an independent regulator.” "

I never noticed this on the front pages of the newspapers yesterday or today. Why not?

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-bank-serious-fraud-office-charges-loan-qatar-2008-capital-raising-a8206076.html

It's tucked away on the inside pages, but today's Times quotes a former chief of the UN's Emergency Coordination Centre, as saying that sexual abuse is 'endemic across the aid sector across the world.'
And, '...if you wear a UNICEF T shirt, nobody will ask what you're up to. You have the impunity to do whatever you want.'

I wonder how many people fondly imagine UNICEF to be beyond reproach?
Given what this man has said, I can't help wondering why it's just Oxfam plastered over the Times front page yet again.

"An article by The London Economic, tweeted this afternoon by Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, quotes Labour MP Lisa Nandy – who three weeks ago reduced Theresa May to incoherence with a question about Tory whips’ cover-up of sexual harassment and abuse allegations – alleging that Rudd,

told me that some papers would be withheld from the Cyril Smith inquiry for national security reasons

There are no ‘national security reasons’ in the world big enough to justify yet another Tory cover-up of the abuse of our children by Establishment figures.

If Nandy’s allegation proves to be correct, Rudd and her boss/predecessor May must resign – and preferably face investigation for potential criminal charges."

This was dated 21/11/2017.

This must be awful for aid workers who never cause harm and only want to good, imagine a wife saying my husband is an aid worker with Oxfam, and their children too may face nasty comments.

A former charity commissioner was interviewed on one of the news channels today. He said that Oxfam had behaved properly with regard to sacking these rogue employees. It was also mentioned that in, I think, the last year Oxfam has got rid of 20 workers for similarly inappropriate or unethical behaviour, Save the Children (I think) 18 workers and another charity (I can't remember which) had dismissed 15.

Yes, it is shocking that charities - which most people probably expect to beyond reproach - have employed totally unsuitable people. But then most people probably expect priests, vicars, sports coaches, teachers, nursery workers, doctors, nurses, therapists, etc. etc. to be beyond reproach but sometimes they're not. The unpalatable fact is, some jobs are more attractive to people with deviant sexual behaviour because they confer more power on them and more opportunity to exploit and abuse. If funding was withdrawn from every organisation that was found to contain people who behave illegally, unethically or inappropriately, there would probably be no money for any of them.

The former commissioner said that the problem was a lack of funding to provide for proper safeguarding procedures, including overseeing employees working abroad. There was, he said, a reluctance to spend money on this sort of procedural work because individual donors and commercial donors wanted to see it being spent on helping people rather than on administration - but he said proper oversight and recording procedures were absolutely essential.

What I feel is the most important issue that Oxfam must address - and the one that needs clarification and proper investigation - is the position regarding references. Were they provided on Oxfam's headed notepaper and, if so, who authorised them to be written and who actually wrote them? If current officers were responsible, I believe they too should be dismissed.

Witzend those words, or similar, were used in a report on the BBC News last night about the whole aid sector.

Good post Eloethan and yes, I agree, the issue of references needs proper investigation because these people have been able to move from sector to sector even though these suspicions of wrongdoing were reported.

I don't know how criminal checks could be carried out on all aid workers in fact, because some are people taken on locally, they are employees from all around the world. It would be very expensive and time-consuming when the charities need to get on with the job of helping people.
If there are suspicions and rumours these should not be dismissed or hidden but should be investigated and followed up.

Is it possible for the recruiting officer simply to give a five minute pep talk to groups of local recruits on the internal ethics of the organisation? I ask this because recruiting officers for any business or profession should presume that some applicants come from social backgrounds that hold to different ethics from that of the business or profession.

5 minutes pep talk is extremely short for such a presentation.
No Q and A I guess. A training morning or afternoon is best in my experience

Jalima, you are right - over the years with different aid organisations my dd has had colleagues of just about every nationality under the sun. And many of those nations will not, I imagine, not have the kind of criminal record checks we have in the UK, even if those are far from perfect.

As has also been pointed out in the media, after a natural disaster such as Haiti, then perhaps wrongly the focus has been on getting staff out there as quickly as possible. I know my dd was in Haiti very soon after the earthquake - after asking whether she spoke French, there was a speedy induction and she was off. But she had been employed by Oxfam before.

Similarly, after the tsunami, when working for an Italian agency in Cambodia, she was more or less dropped very quickly into the deep end in Aceh. Incidentally we visited her there quite a while later and despite so much clearing up and re-building, the enormous scale of the devastation was still obvious. Among many others, we met one lovely lady whose former home had been close to the sea, who had lost 24 family members. :-(. She had gone into town that day to sell her vegetables. She invited us for coffee into the new home that had recently been built by one of the aid agencies. It was intensely humbling to see how people were coping after such an unimaginable (for us) disaster.

Witzend trying to do the equivalent on such a diverse range of aid workers would be unrealistic.
Well done to your DD for her admirable work.

Alexa I don't think it is the local recruits or those who are getting on the the practical work of helping those in need who are the problem (although I could be wrong). It is some of the top people, those who should be in charge of local relief efforts and presumably responsible for local recruitment who have been found to have no ethics.

'on with the'

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/02/17/first-they-came-for-oxfam/

Jalima, I agree . I really meant that the ethics of any organisation should be made clear to any recruits from management to workers in the field. This for the reason I gave, that it's incorrect to presume that every applicant regardless of status comes from the same cultural background of ethical belief. In addition the ethical training sessions should be open to public scrutiny.

For all I know Oxfam and other charities already do ethics training sessions. And maybe top management have to sign a promise to uphold the ethical standards before they can draw salaries. In view of the fact that such as Oxfam exists upon donations the donors should have access to witness the signings up by management.