NCVO reduces chief executive’s salary 

08 Nov 2019 News

NCVO has reduced its chief executive’s salary, at the request of its new CEO Karl Wilding, to £120,000. 

It has also restructured its senior team and published its annual accounts for the financial year to 31 March 2019.

When the role was advertised earlier in the year salary was stated as £145,218, but its accounts reveal that Wilding started on a salary of £120,000 when he took up the role in September. 

NCVO emphasised that the reduction was made at Wilding’s request. 

CEO and director pay is set by NCVO’s HR and remuneration committee, a sub-committee of its trustee board, with independent members. The committee aims to benchmark senior pay at the lower end of larger national charities’ pay levels. 

After he was appointed Wilding asked the committee to reset the salary for the CEO role further towards the lower end. No other salaries were affected by this change. 

Senior management restructure 

Richard Williams, NCVO’s director of membership and enterprise, plans to leave at the end of the year to become a part-time consultant and take on non-executive roles. 

Williams has been at NCVO for 13 years, and Wilding said in an email to staff: “Richard leaves us having helped to rebuild NCVO as a thriving social enterprise. Thanks to his work NCVO is now able to support our largest ever membership with less funding and fewer staff than a decade ago. On behalf of NCVO and the wider sector, I would like to thank Richard for his contribution and the legacy that he leaves us.
 
“Richard intends to keep working and volunteering in the sector but is looking forward to spending more time with his family, friends, and Dusty, his recently adopted rescue dog. He is wholeheartedly committed to our great sector. I’m pleased that we will continue to collaborate in the future for the benefit of the voluntary sector.” 

This has led to a restructure of NCVO’s senior leadership team. Susan Cordingley, director of strategy and planning will become deputy chief executive. 

She will retain responsibility for NCVO’s finance and HR teams as well as for overseeing NCVO’s conference venue. She will take on responsibility for membership, NCVO Charities Evaluation Services, and for the quality standards, Trusted Charity and Investing in Volunteers.

Megan Griffith Gray, NCVO’s current head of digital, data and planning, will become director of strategy and transformation.

Sarah Vibert will join in the new year on a 12-month contract as director of public policy and volunteering. 

These appointments are all on an interim basis, because NCVO is about to embark on a major strategy review. 

Growth in membership and income

NCVO’s membership grew 7 per cent to 14,426, with 96 per of members renewed their membership.

During the year it formed a partnership with Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) giving 38 local ACRES access to membership benefits. It formed a strategic partnership with the Foundation for Social Improvement, extending its free membership threshold from £30,000 annual income to £50,000 for FSI members. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with Mind, giving its members access to NCVO membership, at the end of the previous financial year and began to bring members on board from April 2018. 

Income grew slightly from £8.4m to £8.9m. This is largely down to a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund to develop safeguarding tools for the sector. 

Spending was £8.4m. NCVO spent £5.3m on employee costs, including £61,000 on redundancy costs. The average number of full-time equivalent employees was 90. This is in line with last year’s figures. 

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