Skinflint's City Diary
It seems Mr Douglas Tilbe was displeased with my disclosure of the wayward manner he runs Shelter. But though he protested, things have since gone from worse to worse still. I know it is wrong to kick a man when he is down but since he has knocked himself over I cannot resist tickling his ribs with the toe of my boot.
It has never been very clear what he wanted to do with the charity he took over after Geoffrey Martin was sacked for trying to make it efficient. But whatever Mr Tilbe's intentions, they have almost certainly failed since it is now tumbling about his ears. Regional workers tell me that growing disenchantment at Mr Tilbe's gaucheries has led to a steady decline of central grip over their activities, until now some of them go their own sweet way with scant regard for, and very little contact with, head office.
And it seems that HQ staff are being made redundant. A good thing too, would be most people's reaction, charities are usually overstaffed with pleasant incompetents anyway. True, but included in the people leaving Shelter are the ones who have been doing some of its best work. These are the ones who knew the housing market, wrote and published its best reports, and projected the best side of its image.
Among the ones leaving are Moira Constable who wrote two highly regarded reports for Shelter (one on tied housing and one on caravans), Bobby Vincent-Emery who was head of the press and publicity department and has been battling against the odds to get the place decent coverage as well, and the person who understood better than anyone else the legal complications of the housing jungle, Patrick Benson.
Not that they have been uncere: mornously shown the door — they have been allowed to resign. They were wise to go before their reputations are tarnished by association with an organisation which seems to lose a little more credibility with each of these regular upheavals. But the question remains of why they had to go. Well, since Shelter appears to have no strategy, it is hard to say, but one idea put forward has been that it wants to concentrate on fund raising.
That seems hard to believe
because Mr Tilbe's latest plan is to start a magazine, according to circulars sent to the regions. Someone really ought to tell him (and if everyone is leaving I suppose nobody now will) that vanity publishing is an expensive and wasteful business; that if another magazine were needed for this field, commercial companies would and could produce it; that charities are in business to raise money and give it to the poor and not set up in competition with professionals in other fields; and that as a channel of information a magazine is an uneconomic proPosition as has been proved by even the AA's Drive magazine, despite its being supported by lots of advertising directed at its affluent readership.
Some time ago some charities got together to start a very professional looking magazine called Help. Despite all its advantages that had to fold because it was seen to be a waste of money. Mr Tilbe, be warned.
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