Virgin Trains charity discount offer will leave charities stranded, says DSC 5

Finance | Celina Ribeiro | 16 Aug 2010

Changes to the Virgin Trains charity discount scheme will leave many charities worse off, according to the Directory of Social Change.

Virgin Trains has changed its CharityLine offer, which allowed charities to buy travel at on-peak times at off-peak prices. Now it offers charities a 20 per cent discount on advance fares. The changes came into effect on Friday.

The DSC claims this will mean a 7am trip from Liverpool Lime Street to London will increase for charity passengers from £66 under the old scheme, which was in place for ten years, to £250 under the new one.

Jay Kennedy, head of policy at the DSC, said the changes had been made with “zero consultation” with the sector. The DSC claimed it could leave charities which had budgeted for their travel expenses for the year, out of pocket.

“The company has presented the changes as advantageous by offering a 20 per cent discount on advance tickets, but these are severely restricted. The benefit of the discount for some journeys will be eclipsed by the huge increase in fares for any charity needing to travel at peak times,” he said.

A Virgin Trains spokesman told Civil Society that the company had refocused the scheme to provide benefits to all charities which receive more than 10 per cent voluntary income.

“We are proud to be the only rail operator that offers discounts for charities. We go a lot, lot further than other operators now and in the past,” he said.

The changes, he said, will offer charities discounts throughout the day, rather than just at peak times.

Directory: Directory of Social Change (DSC)
Who's Who: Jay Kennedy

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Emma Dobie
Head of Development
Mentoring and Befriending Foundation
8 Nov 2010

Whilst I appreciate that Virgin Trains is the only train company to offer discounts, the reality is that this discount just doesnt make economic sense for charities. MBF are a national infrastructure charity based in the North West, our staff travel regularly all over the country supporting some of the smallest charities. This change effectively cuts our budget in half. I also dont understand the logic for this, I have never been on a train at peak times and not got a seat. Please consider the implications of this change and work with us to come to solution that work for both parties. Thanks for your consideration.

[Reply]

Pauline Taylor
Head of Finance
St Helens District CVS
31 Aug 2010

I work for a local infrastructure organisation in the North West of England and we have been very grateful to Virgin's Charityline in the past. Because of the nature of our work, most of our funding comes from restricted grants and our voluntary income is below the 10% level that would enable us to benefit from the revised scheme.

When I telephoned to explain our situation, I was informed that the voluntary income level was set to exclude those groups that, although registered with the Charity Commission, aren't, in Virgin's eyes, true charities.

I'm sure we won't be the only charity to fall foul of this decree - maybe more organisations should follow CFDG's lead and hold more meetings and conferences in the provinces.

[Reply]

C Turner
19 Aug 2010

Whilst I can understand the DSC highlighting this change, it's quite an agressive tone to state that there has been "zero consultation" with the sector.

As Virgin Trains have pointed out, they are the only rail operator to offer any discount to charities, and they are certainly not obliged to offer it.

Given the lack of appreciation they apparently get for doing so, with charities apparently regarding the provision of this discount as some kind of entitlement rather than generous offer, they must be tempted to simply withdraw it completely.

Wouldn't it be more productive to lobby other rail companies to offer a charity discount than attack the one that does?

[Reply]

S Cohen
Development & Fundraising Officer
FACT
18 Aug 2010

And apart from the unexpected impact on travel budgets that charities will now face, at a time when all organisations are already reining in expenditure, a move like this could see more people using private vehicles to travel longer distances, which will mean Virgin actually lose out on fares and roads clog up more than currently. There's no excuse in this age of awareness for companies to implement measures which could dissuade people from using 'public' transport.

It wasn't a perfect system before, a web search could come up with as cheap a fare as could be sourced off-peak through CharityLine and there were certainly some changes that could have been made to the scheme, such as being more flexible in the booking procedures (for example online as well as by telephone), notice period and ticket collection methods, but for the majority of small charities, who more often than not have to travel to London to carry out high level business or attend training sessions, changing the scheme to this extent effectively bars charities from north of the Midlands from attending any meeting in London not scheduled for lunch time onwards - due to the exorbitant cost of peak travel - or face paying additional accommodation costs to attend meetings at any other time of the day.

[Reply]

Carole Cochrane
Chief Executive
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers
18 Aug 2010

This is a real shame. The scheme has been of great benefit to many working within the sector and will add to the already long days when we are now forced to travel off peak hours.

This was not something we calculated for when setting 2010/11 budgets which are already extremely stretched.

As someone who lives in Lancashire and commutes weekly into London this will make a real difference not only to the charity's purse but selfishly to my already one-sided work life balance. It will now mean I can't even leave London until early evening - resulting in not getting home until 10pm at the eatliest. I do the traveling because I love my job and really believe in what the Charity is seeking to do for carers.
Please rethink!

[Reply]

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