Shelter responds to Ken Loach
01 May 2008
Shelter today responded to comments made by film maker Ken Loach on the BBC's Today Programme.
The charity's chief executive Adam Sampson said: 'It is very unfortunate that Ken Loach, who has been a Shelter supporter for more than 40 years, should call on other supporters to stop donations to the charity. This only serves to hurt the very people we all want to help.
'Our duty is, and will remain, to help and protect some of the most needy and poorest people in our society, and protecting services to them sometimes means us taking difficult decisions.'
Mr Loach's comments were made after hearing that Shelter is making limited changes to its staff's terms and conditions, including moving the working week from 35 to 37.5 hours; ending automatic increments, although retaining the annual cost of living increase; and making up to five staff redundant, with only one of these being frontline staff.
Mr Sampson added: 'These decisions have not been taken lightly. Before entering into the period of formal negotiation with the trade union, we spent three months seeking alternative options. Unfortunately, no realistic alternatives emerged and the period of negotiation, including two days at ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service), did not produce any agreement.
'At the end of that period, we were faced with the prospect either of making no changes, thereby leading to the loss of statutory funding and of at least 200 jobs, or implementing the changes, with the loss of up to five staff. More than 70% of staff have now agreed to the new contracts and we are confident that the vast majority of the remainder will also agree within the next few weeks.'
Shelter has consistently been assessed as being in the top 100 employers over the past few years, and the changes will help it stay in the top 100, and continue helping 170,000 homeless and badly housed people every year.
Mr Sampson added: 'Even after these changes, terms and conditions for all Shelter staff will remain at least as good as those in comparable charities. To ensure fairness to all our staff we use an independent organisation to benchmark our wages.
'We are disappointed that some staff will take strike action, and we appreciate feelings are running high. But people give us money not to benefit our staff but to benefit those we were set up to serve - the poor, the vulnerable, the homeless - and our moral and legal duty is to use that money as efficiently as possible.'
