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Criticism by watchdog for Lloyd-Webber's charity

Governance | Stefan Marseglia | 19 Jan 2010

Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s charity comes under fire from the Charity Commission, as a recent inquiry finds Lloyd-Webber creating a ‘conflict of interest’ by using foundation-owned paintings during a West End Show.

The Andrew Lloyd-Webber Art Foundation, whose objective is to “advance the education of the public in the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the arts,” came under investigation by the charity watchdog after fears Webber created a ‘perception of private benefit’ by placing the St. Celia painting in the foyer of the Palace Theatre during his 2004 run of the musical Woman in White.

The charity, which owns paintings by Picasso, Spencer and Canal, argued that they were unable to find venues which had the capacity, security or environmental conditions to display the paintings, yet such arrangements had been catered for at the Palace Theatre.

Despite such reservations, the paintings have already been displayed across the world, most notably at the National Portrait Gallery and Tate in London, and the Yale Centre for British Art in America, while the foundation aims to promote the paintings to serve public benefit for a minimum of three months each year.

The report, which concluded that ticket sales to the performance had not increased, commented that “such perceptions need to be appropriately managed by the trustees so as not to erode public trust and confidence in this Charity and charities more generally.”

However criticism also came in by the watchdog regarding the management of the foundation.

With the charity’s trustee body, comprising of Lloyd-Webber, Lady Lloyd-Webber and another individual, also being a partner for the solicitor firm providing legal advice since 2002, an ‘inherent conflict of interest’ was mentioned by the inquiry, due to a lack of sufficient independent trustees.

Lloyd-Webber, who has been the only person to use the paintings privately, resolved such problems by recently appointing four new trustees to the charity, three of whom are independent of the founder.

The inquiry, which occurred in July 2009 and ended in November of the same year, concluded that whilst the charity benefited significantly from generous donations and support from the founder, it was clearly established for the public’s benefit.

With the report commenting that the trustees should give greater consideration to find alternative means of displaying the paintings to advance public education, room for improvement to move the foundation forward should remain the foundation’s top priority for now.

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