Charity Commission's Recommendation for Victoria Hall Trustees Ignored

Councillors vote against creating independent board


Victoria Hall. Picture: Friends of Victoria Hall

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A last-ditch bid to create an independent board of trustees for Victoria Hall ahead of the “most important decision” in the charity’s 127-year history has been defeated by councillors.

The ruling Labour group voted down an attempt by Ealing Conservatives, supported by the Liberal Democrats, to endorse the Charity Commission’s recommendation in relation to the council’s plan to sell off the town hall to hotel developer Mastcraft.

A deal between Ealing Council and Mastcraft has been in the pipeline since 2016, but has been blocked since the discovery the move would involve selling off assets -some of which did not belong to the council. Victoria Hall – located next to the town hall – was built from public donations and belongs to Victoria Hall Trust, set up in 1893.

The hall is usually used for community groups to meet and campaigners fear under hotel ownership they will have restricted access to the spaces.

Currently trustees of Victoria Hall are all members of the council’s General Purposes Committee. While they are legally advised to act as trustees and not as councillors on matters relating to the charity, the Charity Commission wrote in a damning report in April that the set up was “inherently conflicted”.

It advised, “There needs to be an arrangement whereby there are independent co-optees to form a quorum.”


Gill Rowley and Eric Leach deliver a petition to the Charity Commission

Ealing’s General Purposes Committee, made up of the charity trustees, is in the process of formulating a response to the Charity Commission, which will determine whether the government watchdog will allow the deal to go ahead.

In June campaigners blasted the trustee’s last meeting over the Charity Commission concerns as “pretty hopeless” and with “virtually no discussion”.

In a virtual full council meeting on Tuesday, 21 July, Lib Dem councillor, also a Victoria Hall charity trustee, Jon Ball, backed the Conservative’s motion proposed by Anthony Young.

Speaking as a trustee, Cllr Ball said: “With the best will in the world we much more closely resemble a bunch of councillors role-playing at being trustees…

“As far as I can see there can only be two outcomes receding along this trajectory at the next meeting, neither of them are attractive. The Charity Commission will have no option but to rule against the council again, and the council will be left with the stark choice of spending hundreds of thousands of points more in legal fees challenging the decision with no guarantee of success, or abandoning the scheme all together and paying Mastcraft £300,000 to walk away.

“It is clear the only way to have proper governance for the Victoria Hall Trust is for it to operation like any other trust, with its own independent trustees, who are motivated only by what is best for the trust and its charitable objects and not for the boost of the council’s finances hoped to be achieved by the Mastcraft hotel scheme.

He added, “There’s no time to delay, the trustees are in the process of making the most important decisions in the trust’s 127-year history. It is vital that the trustees doing this are representative of the broader community that use the Victoria Hall not merely of the council.”

But responding to the proposal, council leader Julian Bell said members need to look at the “bigger picture”, with the authority’s “significant financial challenges” since 2010 being further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

He said it has left the council with an in-year deficit of more than £35.5 million and the Mastcraft deal was a way it can continue to serve Ealing residents.

“We’ve made a decision as an administration to invest in our vulnerable residents rather than in buildings, or to look at creative ways of investing and maintaining our buildings, that’s what the Mastcraft deal is all about,” he explained.

“It gives us the opportunity to keep the town hall as the civic centre of the borough, it allows us to continue to have the town hall, the Victoria Hall and the Queen’s Hall being used by community groups at community rates. Now all of those things are critical given the financial state that we’re in.”

He also highlighted there was still the opportunity to put forward a revised proposal to the Charity Commission, and that conditions were being “strengthened and beefed up” to ensure community use.

Education boss Yvonne Johnson also backed the deal as “the sensible thing to do” in making the most use of the town hall, and something other London authorities have also done.

But cllr Young warned: “Let’s be quite clear, if we do not appoint independent trustees the Charity Commission will not allow any changes or any progress to be made, they will block this deal.”

The motion was defeated 43 votes to eight. Members of the General Purposes Committee did not vote.

 

Anahita Hossein-Pour - Local Democracy Reporter

July 22, 2020

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