St John Ambulance

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate, although it is not one for which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) or I wished to call. My name came out of the hat, but I take no pleasure in the necessity of the debate taking place. I am—at least for the next hour and a half or so—the vice-president of the Canterbury and Coastal branch of St John. Before the restructuring of the organisation, I was proud to be the vice-president of the Herne Bay branch in my constituency.

The St John Ambulance service is an organisation that has been revered, honoured and respected in Herne Bay for generations. Its presence at the Queen Vic memorial hospital summer fête, the Lark in the Park, football matches, rugby matches and other sporting events, and many concerts and performances held in Kings Hall has been part of the fabric of the town, and the branded ambulances have provided succour for those injured, sick or in need of transfer from one medical facility to another. In my parliamentary lifetime, volunteers such as the late and much loved John Morriss and, currently, George Tunnadine and his partner have been mainstays of our community. They and many others around the county of Kent have accumulated years of dedicated service to society and the public, and have provided countless hours of hard work behind the scenes, learning and then passing on to others their first-aiding and medical skills.

That wonderful inheritance has been placed at risk through mismanagement and a failure to communicate by those charged with protecting it, preserving it and passing it on to their successors, which is why we are here this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury—if he catches your eye, Mr Turner—will deal with specific issues illustrated by and arising from the situation at St John nursing home in Whitstable in his constituency. Others will also wish to have their say, and I am aware that the St John damage control machine has sought to brief individual Members and the Minister about the huge and unqualified success of what others regard as administrative vandalism.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the incredible service of local people to the St John Ambulance brigade over so many years. I pay particular tribute to my own friend and colleague, David Hempleman-Adams, who was the chairman of the Wiltshire organisation, until it was closed recently, and is now a trustee nationally. He would disagree about the structural points that my hon. Friend is about to make.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is sitting on my right, but as those remarks have not yet been made, it might be polite, if nothing else, if he were to wait until I have said what I am going to say. I can say to him that I am sure that the St John briefing notes, which I have seen, will have been well and truly read into the record by the time that we are through.

I will not detain hon. Members for too long, but I need to illustrate with broad brush strokes what has gone wrong and then, as the subject of the debate is the regulation of St John Ambulance by the Charity Commission, set out why the commission has been unwilling, or unable, to intervene in a manner that might have been expected in the interests of those supportive members of the public who have so generously given many millions of pounds over the years to the St John Ambulance service. It is not my style to say under privilege anything that I would not be prepared to say outside Parliament on the record or in public. Nor do I propose—this might come as a relief to some—to name names or to besmirch individual reputations. There is, however, a collective responsibility at the very top of St John that has to be held to account. My understanding is that, in recent years, the St John accumulated reserves have suffered from a near catastrophic 30% loss. I am sure that that figure will be disputed and that “reasons beyond our control” will be offered for the failure to protect the charity’s funds properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I accept that. I know the lady to whom my hon. Friend refers and she is extremely hard-working. I concede that there may well be regional variations, and I will come to that precise issue almost immediately, but I cannot help feeling that the fundamental malaise comes from the very top, and that while some organisers have chosen to interpret instructions in a particular way and successfully, others have been perhaps less successful or felt that they were put under pressure. I am not suggesting that the people doing the job are bad people, except perhaps at the very top, and even then I do not mean that they are bad people in that sense.

We now move into uncharted territory, and I will offer the House some observations that have been made to me, not only from Kent but from East Sussex, the midlands and Yorkshire, as examples of precisely this effect of top-down diktats. When events such as this debate reach the public airwaves, testimony also emerges. During the past week, I have taken phone calls and received written communications from people whose details I have but whom I propose to anonymise for the record.

From East Sussex, a volunteer with 35 years’ service under their belt speaks of a branch that in 2008 had a membership of nearly 86, but which has now declined to just three or four. They also tell me of some 13 units whose headquarters buildings are to be sold, and that is in just one district. Another volunteer tells me of training that has gone downhill, with sessions booked from a centralised HQ in Aylesbury that is out of touch with the rest of the new region. In the former area, there were 146 trained emergency ambulance crews; in the corresponding new administrative area, there are only 86. I was told of headquarters premises sold by St John for £80,000 to a developer, who cleared the site and sold it on for £220,000. St John’s justification for that seems to have been, “We’re not property developers.”

It has been suggested to me—of course, the accurate figures must be available within St John—that the result of reorganisation has been a loss in Kent alone of perhaps as much as 75% of the membership. That is all anecdotal, of course, but it is a matter of record that on Thursday 24 January 2013, a special resolution was tabled calling for a vote of no confidence in the priory and the priory council of St John. That resolution was defeated, but in circumstances that the record suggests were, at the very least, bizarre.

Instead of citing telephone calls, I will quote directly. From Kent:

“We learned of the reorganisation in 2011 and that the new structure would be in place by October 2012.

Kent became part of the South East Region on 1st October 2012 being administered from the Regional Office in Aylesbury.

Our County HQ at West Malling was closed and almost all of the loyal staff made redundant.

All funds that were held in County accounts were amalgamated into the Regional Pot.

The feeling among the membership is that the new Regional Directors are trying to run St John as a commercial company and that making a profit is their main aim.

A small number of local events that we covered for a small donation are now not able to run because St John wants to charge them a commercial price and they cannot afford it.

Each Division would raise funds to buy a new Ambulance; they took pride in their vehicle, kept it clean and well stocked and were proud to display their Divisional name on the side of the Ambulance. Those Ambulances have had the names removed and no longer belong to the Division but are moved around the Region with no-one taking ownership for their cleanliness and equipment.

Kent was one of the best-run Counties in the Country with a very strong membership providing thousands of hours of voluntary service to the public of Kent. Sadly, the membership is declining fast and it appears that what has taken over 1000 years to establish the new management have destroyed in just over a year.

I would be interested to know where the funds that we held in Kent have disappeared to.”

From the east Midlands, a long-standing and very faithful divisional superintendent gave the following reasons for his recent and unexpected resignation from St John. I am quoting from a minute:

“That the commercial side of St John was taking over and using the voluntary arm, for financial gain, neither of which is within the spirit of St. John.

To achieve this end there is no regard or concern for the volunteers. We have not been consulted about anything, decisions are made over our heads even when affecting our Units personally, even including the decision to close down a particular unit.

The Leaders of East Midlands Region say whatever is suitable for the occasion, even if it’s not the truth and even if they’d said the total opposite before.”

That is followed by something that is even more disparaging and I will not read it out. It continues:

“The need for change in St. John is understood but the harsh, inconsiderate manner, with few explanations and little consideration of the volunteers, is not an appropriate way to introduce these changes. A more humane, considerate approach could have produced a better outcome.”

Another volunteer from Kent said that

“having been a member for almost 38yrs I am totally confused with this ‘restructuring’. All I see is an excuse to take all Divisional funds away from the Divisions into one large pot… Divisions virtually have to beg for funds and they are a long time coming if they come at all.

We now have a District Manager in Kent telling us he wants us to work with local authorities and KCC and his vision is to cut out event cover completely! Our whole ethos…for the past 1000 years has been to give help to the sick and since we were reformed in 1877 in England we have always covered public events assisting the injured. Our Division has some events we have been covering over fifty years.

I am very sad that everything St. John stands for is being undermined.”

[Mr Gray]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend. I understand that local people are disturbed by these kinds of reorganisations; that is always the case. Will he explain why this is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government, or even why it is a matter worth raising in this Chamber? These might be worrying developments, but are they really a matter for Parliament?

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have already indicated the subject of the debate to my hon. Friend. The debate is about the Charity Commission’s involvement in the matter, which is a matter for Her Majesty’s Government. I will come on to that in a few moments, if he can possess his soul with a little patience.

A community first responder unit said:

“We would like to inform St John that after a unanimous vote by all CFR members we are going to close the Community First Responder Scheme… This will also mean that our St. John Membership will also cease. Some of the reasons that have caused us to take this decision are listed below…poor communication on behalf of St. John…poor record keeping on behalf of St John…lack of information on behalf of St John…forced to purchase through St John’s Services—not the best option…bad press coverage of St. John Ambulance”.

That final catalogue perhaps exemplifies the high-handed, arrogant and remote manner in which the Priory of England and the Islands of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and the St John Ambulance leadership seem to have severally and collectively treated their volunteers and erstwhile supporters—that and the selling of the family silver.

Local headquarters are, of course, ultimately the property of St John, but with the funds to purchase and maintain those properties raised locally, it is not surprising that a sense of local pride and ownership has prevailed. To see their premises flogged off to meet the costs of the failings and excesses of what they regard as a bureaucratic and elitist London headquarters has proved to be more than many formerly loyal supporters can bear. A cleric from Yorkshire writes that

“when Selby was sold, the property which had been bought by the county had its proceeds taken from them for HQ funds. When a new property was found, the county leased it on a rent and had to pay so much a month for its use out of their own funds. They were not able to use the monies from the old property in any way! The same also was true for the Scarborough Division when it changed properties. I always think that it is unfair when London swallows up what has been raised by hard work in the counties—don’t you agree?”

I have to say that I do agree.

Against that unhappy backdrop, the Chamber will, I hope, shortly hear of the concerns surrounding the future of funds donated for the support of the St John residential home in Whitstable. Members may also hear of the shift—denied by St John—away from its core and Christian services and values, morphing a fine institution into little more than a commercial health and safety training organisation.

To directly answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), I have a question for the Minister. When my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury and I referred the conduct of St John to the Charity Commission, we were told that:

“It is important to emphasise that although the Commission’s functions include encouraging and facilitating the better administration of charities, and taking remedial action to tackle misconduct or mismanagement, the law prohibits the Commission from acting directly in the administration of the charity. Trustees are the managers of their charities and it is their job to make the administrative and strategic decisions necessary for their charities’ proper and effective management… The Commission cannot direct the trustees to take one particular course of action or another. Neither does the Commission have discretion to overrule the trustees’ validly taken decision on the grounds that others take a different view, however strongly held.”

Either my hon. Friend the Minister will tell me that the commission is wrong and does have the powers to instigate independent inquiries into the conduct and management of St John, or he will have to tell me that the commission is correct and has no powers to intervene. If the latter is the case, the House will need to address that by giving the Charity Commission the additional powers necessary to properly discharge its duties in the public interest.

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[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Turner. I will try to be brief because much of what needs to be said in the debate has already been said—I will certainly try to avoid repeating anything.

Let me start with what I believe to be three truths that will be welcomed by everyone in the Chamber. The first is that over many years St John Ambulance has done fantastic work for the people of this country. Every year it attends 52,000 events, many of which would not occur were St John Ambulance not there. An ambulance and first aid service have to be available at such events, and St John provides that at very modest cost to the organisers. I have been a beneficiary of that service.

The second universal truth is that the very many people who are members of St John Ambulance and have been trained by the organisation enjoy their participation greatly. It is a superb volunteer organisation. I pay huge tribute to the people of Wiltshire who are members of our extremely active branches throughout the county. Their great work is much appreciated.

The third universal truth, however, is that when any organisation—whether a voluntary organisation such as St John Ambulance, a business, a military organisation or a political organisation—is reorganised, many people in that organisation do not like it. Those who have been the chairmen or members of the committees of the 41 separate organisations that were previously St John Ambulance—or, indeed, members of the sub-units, or other committees and organisations—do not like the fact that they are no longer involved in the way in which they were previously. I understand that very human emotion.

Let me put the counter-argument for a moment, however. I have been briefed on the matter by my close friend, David Hempleman-Adams, who was the chairman of the Wiltshire branch of St John Ambulance. He assisted in the reorganisation and is now a trustee nationally. He is one of those who say, “We couldn’t go on the way we were. This was not the sustainable structure that we wanted to have for the time to come.”

Let us put aside for a moment the question of whether people in the organisation wanted it to be reorganised, although that is a key matter of great concern, and I am sure that St John Ambulance will be listening carefully to the concerns of many local people that are being raised in the debate. However, as I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), that is not a matter for the Government. It would be wrong if the Government took an interest in the internal organisation of a voluntary body such as St John Ambulance, so the Minister is not qualified to respond to those particular criticisms.

The subject of the debate is the charity commissioners’ governance of St John Ambulance, and of course that, to some degree, is a matter for Parliament and Ministers—or at least it would be if the charity commissioners were not doing the job that the Government have asked them to do. The commissioners’ job is to look at the huge number of charities in the UK—I suspect that there may be hundreds of thousands if we include all the very small ones—and keep an eye on them to ensure that they are fulfilling the charitable functions that they are supposed to fulfil and that they are sustainable.

I think that I am right in saying that the charity commissioners would intervene only if a charity was not doing what it was set up to do, or if it was not sustainable. If a charity were, for example, losing large amounts of money every year and misusing the funds of volunteers or members of the organisation, that would indeed be a reason for the charity commissioners to step in and look that. I was not surprised in the slightest by the reaction that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet got from the charity commissioners—indeed, I strongly welcomed it. They said, “We’ve looked into this and actually these are not matters for us; they are matters for St John Ambulance internally.” I was very glad indeed that the charity commissioners did not choose to intervene in detail on the ground.

I suspect, however, that had the organisation continued to lose the £9 million a year that it was losing until the reorganisation, that would indeed have been a matter for the charity commissioners. I understand that St John Ambulance still has reserves of some £20 million. As it was losing £9 million a year, that would mean that it would have been insolvent after another two years, which would indeed have been a matter of grave concern to the charity commissioners, as well as the organisers of the 52,000 events that the body attends every year and the 300,000 people who take part in it. That would be an extraordinarily important matter, and I am glad that that situation will now not occur following the body’s reorganisation.

I fear that bodies that have existed for many tens or even hundreds of years often become a little sclerotic and very local. We in the Conservative party know that extremely well. Some of our branches and associations are not quite of the great strength and power that was the case were many years ago. We see such things nationally all the time, but I very much welcome the fact that St John Ambulance realised the problem that it was facing. It understood that it would be in difficulty with the Charity Commission if it did not do something about it, and it set about saying, “We provide a first-class service for local people, and local people love being part of it. We will therefore take difficult steps to reorganise the organisation so that it remains solvent for the years to come.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on securing the debate. I will make some local points about the St John home in my constituency, after which I will address several of the national issues that have been raised and debated by people who have had a longer involvement with the Order of St John than I have. I should perhaps say that my grandfather was the St John Ambulance county commissioner for Kent. At the time, he was the county’s largest employer, so I imagine that the many years of his time that he gave for free were of some value. That was a long time ago, but more recently a friend of mine has been involved with the St John eye clinics in Palestine, and I am constantly impressed when I see people on the St John operation.

I will focus specifically on the St John home in Tankerton in my constituency. That much-loved home was founded in 1947 and given to the Priory of England and the Islands in 1955. It was transferred to St John Ambulance in 1999, and it has always had a separate governance structure. The people who gave the home its £750,000 in assets did so, almost without exception, because they had a connection with the home. Had any of them realised that its separate governance structure had no legal basis and that those assets might one day be seized by the centre, I suspect that the fundraising would have taken a very different shape. The capital earns around £30,000 in interest, which bridges the gap between the cost of running the home and the income that it receives from residents and Kent county council. The home is small, with only 18 beds, and that money is essential for its financial viability.

I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), but I found some of his contribution surprising. I was surprised by his allusion to the restructuring of the Red Cross, and the fact that he did not pass on—perhaps because St John had not told him—what actually happened with the Red Cross reorganisation. When he referred to the St John home in my constituency, however, I was truly staggered to hear him quoting from the letter of 17 October from the prior, when the letter that we received only a fortnight later dated 5 November stressed that the moneys referred to in previous correspondence could not be regarded as legally restricted. As the separate governance structure of the home is being broken up, there is nothing to stop the priory taking those moneys at any notice.

I will turn to the national picture before saying a few words about the role of the Charity Commission, which is the core of the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned concerns about how criticism of the changes in St John has been treated. Of course, wherever there is change, some people will be against it, but never in any charity— I have seen it occasionally in a political party—have I seen the kind of conduct that has reportedly occurred over the past two years.

I shall expand a little on what my hon. Friends have referred to. There was a no-confidence motion in January 2013, as a result of which 10 people were suspended. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) said that the leafy parts of Kent formed too large a part of the debate, so let me quote from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who is unfortunately detained in the debate on the Floor of the House. She was contacted by a constituent who is an old friend and was one of those suspended. She wrote to me:

“I am very concerned to have heard from my constituent that 10 senior members of the chapter of St John were suspended last March on charges of gross misconduct”—

basically for saying that they did not agree with what was going on—

“on account of signing a motion of no confidence in the trustees and excluded from any further work or contact with St John for the best part of a year. A debate was held as a result of this properly constituted and well supported motion, and in the event the motion was only defeated on a 40/60 split.”

Many of those involved in the debate had served for more than 20 years. My hon. Friend continued:

“The process for deciding on the charges has been dysfunctional and frankly beyond parody”—

those are her words, not mine—

“resulting in each of them being found guilty of the charges and given ‘suspended sentences’ of exclusion from office.”

I have dug a little further into the matter, and I want to share one fact that illustrates the extent to which governance has broken down in the organisation. The case was heard by an individual who was, on paper, extremely well qualified. He had a long involvement with St John, he had legal training and he was a clergyman. Unfortunately, he breached the first principle of natural justice, because he had been an extremely partisan participant on the other side of the debate. He could not, by any possible standards, be said to be independent. Such a breach of administrative justice should not be allowed to occur in any well-founded organisation.

I move on to the role of the Charity Commission. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet asked the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—I know that, in the short time he has had available to prepare, he has taken a close interest in the case—a specific question, and I would like to ask another one. Is it right that the Charity Commission should confine itself to areas in which it has a specific legal duty to intervene? Might one reasonably expect any regulatory body—one thinks of the Bank of England, as a larger example—to take an informal interest when concerns are reported, and perhaps to do some informal prodding and make the odd telephone call?

I hope that hon. Members do not regard me as particularly pompous, but I find it extraordinary that after a group of MPs wrote to the Charity Commission, it would refuse to see us to discuss the matter. Whatever the merits of a case, if the Charity Commission is not even willing to discuss it with elected representatives, something has gone wrong in the organisation. It may well examine what is going on in the St John charity and conclude that the whole thing is a storm in a teacup, although I maintain that the administrative failings of the process at the centre, and the changing of mind on the various guarantees paid to the St John home in my constituency, need serious answers. The Charity Commission has been unwilling even to hold a meeting. Of course, since we secured the debate, the organisation has said that it will be happy to see us, but it was not able to fit us in before the debate.

[Mr Gray]

May I make a point on behalf of the charity commissioners? I understand that my hon. Friend may well be frustrated by the inability to hold such a meeting. However, does he agree that, if the charity commissioners were to start having meetings of that kind, with either one side or the other, about the many thousands of charities that might well be in similar disputes throughout the nation, they would be doing nothing else with their time—there are very few of them—and would become improperly involved in the internal politics of the charities? That would seem to be an absolutely wrong use of the commissioners’ time.

[Mr Brazier]

In its correspondence to us, the Charity Commission said that a charity’s trustees are legally responsible for all aspects of a charity’s management and administration, which I am sure we would all agree with. It went on to say that the commission would take action only if it believed that its regulatory powers were necessary or would be of use. In other words, an informal investigation is ruled out. That is very odd, however, because, to answer my hon. Friend’s question directly, the Charity Commission’s own description of its responsibilities and duties on its website states that it should be concerned with

“breaches of trust or abuses that otherwise impact significantly on public trust and confidence in the charity and charities generally”.

Given that three MPs representing different parties and areas—the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) may have been born in Kent, but she represents a seat in Derbyshire—had already expressed concerns, and that, from memory a fourth, my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, came on board between the two letters, I would have thought that this was more than just a casual inquiry. I would have thought that the Charity Commission would have liked to have been involved.

I have detained Members for long enough, but would like to end with what I was about to say before the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), for whom I have huge respect. St John Ambulance is a very precious charity. Every single MP who has spoken in this debate believes passionately in it, and most have had a much greater involvement with it than I have. It seems that something has gone wrong, and that the Charity Commission should be looking at that.