Air Ambulance board allows sacked CEO to appeal

Fundraising | Tania Mason | 9 Dec 2009

The board of the London Air Ambulance charity that sacked chief executive David Philpott after he raised concerns about alleged malpractice by some trustees, has reportedly commissioned an independent review into the circumstances surrounding his dismissal.

The trustee board refused to confirm or deny whether this was true, but Philpott told Civil Society he had heard it was.

However, the independent reviewer has not yet approached Philpott to give evidence.

The trustees of Virgin HEMS London have also agreed to grant Philpott an appeal against his dismissal, and he has sent them a letter setting out his grounds for appeal. In this he claims his dismissal was unfair because it arose from him bringing to the attention of the trustees "as a group and some individual trustees in particular, possible criminal acts and failures of the charity to comply with its legal obligations”.

He said he should have been protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act, and added: “The fact that the trustees terminated my employment on the basis of information supplied by others (who were themselves implicated in the allegations) without giving me the opportunity to respond, denied me a fair hearing and natural justice.”

Philpott (pictured) told Civil Society that the big issue at stake was public confidence. “If chief executives of charities can be dismissed by their boards for raising questions about probity and financial mismanagement, what confidence can the donating public have that their monies are being properly used?

“Surely CEOs should enjoy immunity from dismissal if concerns are raised in an appropriate manner,” he said.

Directory: Charity Commission

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