News / “A sad day for democracy”
SHETLAND Charitable Trust has “reluctantly” voted through the biggest ever reform to its constitution in its 36 year history, removing council control of the £200 million charity set up to distribute income from the oil industry at Sullom Voe.
Trustees agreed by 10 votes to six to adopt reforms that were proposed last December and accepted by charity regulator OSCR in July.
They also agreed the re-constituted trust, consisting of seven councillor and eight appointed trustees, should carry out an independent review of the decision before March 2016.
An attempt by trust vice chairman Jonathan Wills to tear up the plan was defeated after two and a half hours of debate, during which most trustees agreed with his premise that the re-organisation was undemocratic and not in the best interest of the trust.
OSCR chief executive David Robb had written to all trustees last month warning that if they followed Wills’ proposal they risked being suspended for misconduct and the regulator stepping in to run the organisation.
The meeting at Islesburgh Community Centre kicked off with the trust’s legal advisor Simon Mackintosh, of Turcan Connell, reemphasising the seriousness of OSCR’s warning.
He said OSCR had the power to prevent any transactions between the trust and Shetland Islands Council if the conflict of interest issues were not resolved.
Chairman Drew Ratter then moved for the charitable trust to adopt a reformed constitution which had been four years in the making.
He said the meeting had no other option as OSCR could not accept amendments at this late stage.
He was seconded by Allan Wishart on condition the new structure would be reviewed within its first three years.
Vice-chair Jonathan Wills then moved the “direct negative”, seconded by SIC leader Gary Robinson.
Wills insisted the re-organisation was not a reform in the sense of progress, but a backward step: “a retreat to ideas of the early 19th century”.
Robinson regarded the proposed constitution as “defective” in that it did not “do what it sets out to do”.
Most trustees who contributed to the debate expressed their sympathy with Will’s views and their objection to being “bullied around” by OSCR.
However a majority decided to vote through the re-organisation to avoid “jeopardising the trust”.
Council convener Malcolm Bell said: “I don’t like OSCR’s actions. I don’t like to be threatened, my natural reaction would be rejection, but would that be in Shetland’s best interest?
“The best way forward is to accept this now, and then review it and come forward with a revised scheme.”
George Smith added: “This is a sad day for democracy. OSCR has no trust in trustees, and I find this objectionable.”
Davie Sandison said he had always supported Wills’ view that the re-organisation proposal before them was “insufficient”, and agree with his analysis that the change would bring a democratic deficit.
However he was afraid to say that he had changed his mind with regards to how he would vote.
Theo Smith questioned whether the newly constituted trust would have a desire to re-install democratic control and added that he was “very worried” as to what would happen to the trust in the future.
Referring to Smith’s concern in his summing up, Dr Wills said: “Review is fine, but there is one problem. Who is going to review? You will not get a bunch of self-selecting people voting themselves out again.”
And he advised trustees that by voting in favour of re-organisation they may avoid having to answer questions in the Court of Session, but they will certainly have lost “in the court of public opinion”.
Expressing the hope that no one might come forward to be selected as a trustee, Ratter used his closing speech to remind the meeting that OSCR and the charity law existed and therefore could not be ignored.
“We can scold the regulator as much as we want, but he is there and the only decision we can make here today is to adopt the motion.”
Voting in favour of the re-organisation were: Drew Ratter, Dave Sandison, George Smith, Allan Wishart, Malcolm Bell, Peter Campbell, Alastair Cooper, Steven Coutts, Bobby Hunter and Valerie Nicolson.
Against were: Gary Robinson, Theo Smith, Jonathan Wills, Amanda Westlake, Gary Cleaver and Andrea Manson.
Missing from the meeting were: Mark Burgess, Robert Henderson, Michael Stout, Frank Robertson, Allison Duncan and Vaila Wishart.
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