Liverpool Age Concern declares independence from ‘bureaucratic’ Age UK

A REBEL Liverpool charity has declared independence from the UK’s largest age charity with a scathing attack on their “bureaucratic” and “wasteful” operation.

Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton has vowed to remain locally-run and refused to join London-based Age UK, the charity formed by the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Dil Daly, chief executive of Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton, is one of four local charity bosses leading the rejection of the national organisation.

The rebellion has been joined by 15 local charities, including city groups in Manchester, Preston and Birmingham.

The charities will keep their ‘Age Concern’ names but say they were forced by Age UK to come up with a new logo, which will be launched at Liverpool Town Hall this afternoon.

Mr Daly will also launch a rival trading company called ‘advant-Age’, to raise charitable funds by providing services such as insurance and stairlifts. He will be a director, alongside three other Age Concern bosses.

Mr Daly said this move had enabled them to pick Liverpool-based firms to work with such as Parker Kelly as suppliers of equity release.

He said: “This is a new social enterprise in Liverpool and hopefully is going to create jobs in future.”

Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton was the first ever Age Concern when it was launched in 1928. Mr Daly said: “Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton was started by the city’s great pioneers in health and social care and we are following in their footsteps by forging our own destiny.”

He said: “We want to determine our own policy and do things for local people that are locally decided. Older people in Liverpool and Sefton are among the most deprived in the UK.

“The biggest fear for us was that we would have to follow instructions of a centralised organisation that had no feel for what local people want or need. The idea that there is ‘one solution fits all’, we feel is totally inappropriate.”

He said independence would guarantee that money raised in Liverpool “stays locally and none of it is filtered off to fund other charities elsewhere”.

“Local people give us money in the belief it will stay here.”

He said the national charity was “bureaucratic, slow and quite wasteful of money,” citing Age UK figures of income for 2009/10 of £161m and charitable expenditure at £68m.

He said: “To me a charity is one where the majority of our money goes on charitable expense. Their focus seems to be on maintaining this huge machine in the middle.”He said that Age UK employed too many “office based pen-pushers” and had “an enormous amount of staff in London”.

Age UK Group said it employed 2221 people, the vast majority working in its 500 shops, training business or commercial arm. It ‘directly employs’ 304 people and has about 550 employees in London based offices. It said: “Every £1 donated to Age UK goes towards its charitable work.”

Mr Daly said the rebel charities would work together in a “lean federation” with no central organisation. He said: “We don’t want to put the money into bureaucracy”.

He said he regretted wasting money having a new logo designed for £500.

Age Concern Liverpool has around 120 staff and 480 volunteers. Its work includes home-help for 2,300 vulnerable old people in the area, but last month its funding was cut by 52% leading Mr Daly to warn that people would die without the service.

Helena Herklots, services director at Age UK, said they expected around half of the 300 local charities would become local Age UKs and the other half would become ‘friends of Age UK’.

She said: “We believe our proposals for working together represent a really good package.” She said they respected decisions of the “small number” who had rejected both options. She called Liverpool’s decision “a shame” but wished them well. She added: “We will continue to work hard for older people in the area.”