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Rogue fundraiser worked for nine charities

Fundraising | Lucy Harvey | 10 Oct 2008

Several charities are to tighten their checking procedures on new recruits after one worker duped nine different organisations into giving him paid employment.

Andrew Coutts was employed full-time by the British Polio Fellowship in October 2007 as a home-based professional fundraiser on a £30,000 salary.

But when he failed to deliver on targets, chief executive Graham Ball Googled his name and discovered the 43-year-old was being paid a salary by eight other charities as well.

Ball, who has worked in the charity sector for 20 years, said: “He was sometimes a bit difficult to get hold of, and he should have come into the office weekly but he couldn’t - he was either poorly or made some excuse. That’s when I started making enquiries. I have now spoken to eight different organisations which have all confirmed he worked for them as well.

Contracts for 24 days a week

“You can legitimately work for a couple of charities, but he was contracted to about 24 days a week according to my calculations.”

Ball, who has dismissed Coutts by post after he failed to attend a meeting, added: “I feel very sick that he should do this kind of thing. He was clearly targeting smaller charities.

“He has put our plans back ten months and we have had to scale down our 70th anniversary celebrations as a direct result.”

The British Polio Fellowship (pictured) has notified its solicitors of the case, and reported Coutts to the Charity Commission and the police who are investigating.

Deceived and upset

Their legal action is supported by another of Coutts’ employers, Tax Help For Older People, which paid him £11,000 for a part-time professional fundraising role from January until September this year, during which time he raised just £8,000.

Chair of the trustees, Martin Hodgson, said: “We feel deceived and upset by this, and we have lost valuable time.

“Our chief executive Paddy Millard first had apprehensions about him in May but his fears were allayed by more frequent communication.

“But just before the board trustee meeting in September feelings of unease began to surface again because we were not seeing very much money coming in. He raised just £8,000 in nine months, which was much less than expected.

“The final straw came when the British Polio Fellowship blew the whistle on him.”

Extra safeguards in recruitment process

Both organisations now plan to introduce more stringent checks on prospective employees.

Ball said: “We offer very flexible working patterns at the British Polio Fellowship, and have got several other home workers who do a fantastic job. No one has let us down before - after all we are in the charity sector to give not to take.

“But because of this we will now be putting extra safeguards into the recruitment process in the future.

“I think we are a bit vulnerable in the charity sector because we do not expect people to do such a thing.”

Hodgson, whose charity supports up to 12,000 older people each year, added: “Because we are here purely with the focus of helping people we are not naturally on our guard against this kind of situation.

“We will be investigating references in the future much more vigorously than we did.

“It is sad that someone chose to pick on charities like ours to make a dishonest bob.”

Andrew Coutts, who lives in South Wales, was not available to comment.

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