Wednesday 16 November 2011

Professional Pay for CEOs, dinner and Andrew

Tonight we launch our annual Pay Survey. David Fielding from attenti will be outlining the key points at the Royal College of Pysicians ( The CEO Martin Else, is an ACEVO member) where we have our annual ACEVO dinner.

Don't you get irritated by those who think that CEOs shouldn't be paid at all or take a low salary?

The topline findings from this year's survey show that

On pay

No sector has been immune to the major economic pressures we face as a country. It’s inevitable therefore that this will have an impact on the pay of both leaders and the workforce in our sector.

Whilst we’ve been making the case for professional pay for professional jobs for decades, it’s clear that the sector has made a sound decision in taking a responsible approach to setting the pay of its leaders in times of strain. Like last year the average CEO salary in the sector has risen by less than inflation (this year by 3.5% TO £60K).

Having said this, we cannot allow difficult times to set us on a backward path. We need strong and experienced leaders more than ever to steer organisations through the significant challenges ahead.

It’s clear that as organisations look to make major changes in how they operate, in many cases looking to merge, restructure or make redundancies, leaders are going to need be clear and more confident than ever in communicating their value, impact and worth as CEO.

On cuts

The findings of this year’s survey show the alarming reality the impact of cuts are having on the sector. We knew 12 months ago that things were going to be tough, but we couldn’t be sure how the cuts would fall, and whether or not our sector would be less or worse hit than others.


With 70% of ACEVO members which receive public funding experiencing a cut. Worth on average 23% of that funding, the figures clearly support the noise that’s been out there for a while; that in places cuts are falling disproportionately hard on the sector.

The impact is already taking its toll on services, organisations and ultimately the beneficiaries which the sector is there to serve with 32% reducing service levels and 41% of organisations having to make redundancies this year.

On diversity

Despite the scale of challenges the sector faces. We cannot afford to overlook ongoing issues which the sector needs to address. I’ve long been stressing the importance of diversity both at the top and throughout all levels of third sector organisations.

It’s promising to see that the number of female trustees has risen significantly this year, from 17% to 40% and that women actually outnumber their male counterparts at senior management level with 3 out of 5 positions being occupied by women.

However the gender pay gap remains of real concern. The gap has risen again this year from 10-16% with women in some positions being paid as 30% less than their male counterparts.

Ethnicity remains an issue too. With 96% of chairs coming from a white background, and 94% of CEOs.

On leadership

It’s not all doom and gloom, there is much to celebrate in the findings on our leadership this year. Despite 58% of CEOs facing an increased workload sector leaders remain passionate to the cause and 85% of CEOs are optimistic about the future of their organisation.

Visit the ACEVO homepage from tomorrow to get the findings in full.

This morning I was at the NHS Future Forum. I challenged Andrew Lansley on the " right to challenge", a key recommendation from the Choice and Competition report. I suggested you can hardly promote integrated health and social care services where citizens have a Right to Challenge the Council but denied that right for the NHS.

And now I need to get home and change for our dinner. We have the CEO of Vodaphone as our guest speaker and there are the usual clutch of VIPs to wine and dine on behalf of the members. And as I have to make a speech tomorrow introducing the CEO of RBS at our annual conference I shall not be drinking!

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