Letters / A convenient untruth
I would hate to spoil the fun at the spontaneous street parties that, no doubt, are still going on to celebrate the council’s rescue from the clutches of the Accounts Commission, but I feel obliged to point out that the deal brokered by our recently departed redeemer is based upon a convenient untruth (and a large dollop of Orkney fudge).
In the SIC draft annual accounts, upon which the auditors have lavished such praise, it states that Shetland Charitable Trust is a “subsidiary” and is “controlled” by the council. The trust’s published accounts have been “grouped” with the council’s, as the auditors demanded, but without the trustees’ consent.
The charitable trust is not a subsidiary. Irrespective of who the trustees may be from time to time, the trust is and has always been a separate legal entity from the council. That is the opinion of Roy Martin QC, whom the council and the trust commissioned to advise them because he knows more about these matters than anyone else.
If any of the councillors who are currently also trustees by virtue of their election to the SIC were to attempt to control the trust in the interest of the council, rather than acting solely in the interests of the trust (as they are obliged to do under the terms of their trust deed), they would be guilty of a breach of trust and could be removed by the Scottish Charity Regulator. But the regulator has not accused any of us of such gross misconduct and has not removed us, so what are the council’s external auditors and our saviour over the water talking about?
Boxes may have been ticked, embarrassments avoided and gold stars stuck on some people’s CVs, but the central problem remains: under the so-called reform of the trust, the council will now appoint seven of its members to be trustees, leaving them still open to the allegation that they could “control” the trust on occasions when there’s a poor turnout of “independent” trustees, and bearing in mind that the quorum is now only six, not 12.
The eight unelected “independents” will shortly be appointed by a “troika” commission of one professional headhunter, one councillor trustee and one trustee who also happens to be a council employee (the sovereign’s man of business having, wisely, declined the poisoned chalice, as it were). It will be interesting to see what this selection system throws up, reminiscent as it is of the process in the 1950s for selecting Tory Party leaders and members of the Soviet Politburo.
I have a question for any putative trustee who may be approached by the Undemocrats who betrayed the public’s trust on 13th September: “If approved as an unelected, appointed trustee, would you support returning the trust to democratic majority control at the earliest opportunity?”
Jonathan Wills
Vice-chair
Shetland Charitable Trust
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