No organisation likes a robust challenge. Nor do they appreciate independent people asking probing questions about their policies and practices. Witness Mr Brittin last week.
The biggest player in the charitable land-owning sector is the National Trust. It spends a huge amount of public and charitable money, some of it from government grants and some of it raised from its members. For the National Trust there's a lot at stake if it is shown to be spending piles of public money on the wrong thing. Reputationally they could lose a great deal. Their cushion is their popularity with the old, the quiet and the risk averse, including the 'hear no evil' caucus set in their ways and resistant to new perspectives.
The big enemy of these mega charities is transparency and this they share with giant business corporations. Those who challenge their practices must not be given the ammunition of knowledge and information. That is why the transparency legislation through FoI should be extended, not reduced.
The progress of the Sheffield Moors Partnership was one of all organisations pulling together to aid those in difficulty. When SWT was challenged it was important that the National Trust and the RSPB along with the PDNPA and NE should come to its aid..
After all, those questionable management doctrines that SWT struggled to justify were the same that the National Trust was applying in Moors for the Future and elsewhere. If the challenge to SWT prevailed would the NT and others feel the presure next? Millions of public funds has been spent on pet projects that could come under tougher scrutiny with consquent reputational damage. Hold the line. Hence the parachuting in of NT staff to SRWT.
Both NT and RSPB are huge bureaucracies and, like the banks, cannot be allowed to fail. Once the banks too were perceived by the public to be squeaky clean.
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