I attended most of the RSPB’s online AGM on Saturday after having a bit of a struggle to get registered for it. I was there from the beginning until I had heard that my friend and former colleague Euan Dunn had been given the prestigious RSPB Medal this year. That news was, in some ways, the nicest bit of the event.
Before writing these few thoughts (and there will be an even more considered view in my next monthly newsblast – out next week – free – subscribe here) I re-read what I wrote last year – click here – and I’d recommend you do that too.
The RSPB entered this AGM having LIARgate hanging over it a little from last year and being in the middle of an unsettling review of its work, driven, we are told, by financial concerns. This year also sees a large change in the make-up of RSPB Council with several departures including that of the Chair, Kevin Cox.
I like Kevin personally and think he’s done a pretty good job as RSPB Chair. The organisation was fortunate to have his expertise for recent years. Chairs probably depart with the same thoughts that Prime Ministers do, along the lines of ‘That just flew by, we got some of the changes done that we needed to do, but not all of them, and we spent quite a lot of time dealing with unexpected and unwelcome events, but if only I had one more year…’.
Kevin mentioned LIARgate (the social media spasm that got RSPB in trouble with the Charity Commission last autumn) but in such a way that wouldn’t have made much sense to new listeners and with no clarity about how it happened or why it wouldn’t happen again. Maybe that’s entirely appropriate but I notice that the one person whose identity we know, and who behaved poorly in my view at the time, a Council member who made inappropriate remarks on social media, is still a Council member. That reduces my confidence in RSPB governance quite considerably. He shouldn’t still be there.
The Treasurer’s report told us that all was well and was followed by the Chief Executive telling us that all was not well and that was why the RSPB was going through yet another review of staffing, structures and spend. The disconnect might be because the Treasurer was talking about more distant events (the last set of accounts) whereas Beccy was talking about here and now, or at least ‘back several months, and now, and into the future because nothing is decided yet’. Beccy did make it sound, to my ears, as if the focus of this review is now on nature reserves and their staffing although I get contrary information from others in and close to the RSPB. And the driving force is finance and rising costs. That isn’t really what the Treasurer’s report of last year or this year indicated, which is at the least, interesting.
In fact the whole ‘rising costs’ problem is akin to admitting that management of the organisation hasn’t been tight enough. Liz Truss trashed the economy two years ago, not last year, rising prices aren’t a new thing which were unforeseen until summer 2024. Every organisation has the death wish of living beyond its means which is usually manifest by overspend on the ground if there aren’t sufficient financial controls from the centre and if middle managers are weak. Organisations need a strong centre because the decisions of hundreds of staff dispersed through an organisation can cause a problem. Also, it’s the senior managers and Council who carry the can in public. Those considerations apply to how money is spent, public statements are made and a whole slew of other issues. Organisations who don’t manage these things correctly are always reviewing themselves even when the external world is benign.
I am reminded of the quote sometimes attributed to the Roman Petronius Arbiter but probably dreamt up by a non-Roman in the mid twentieth century;
“We trained hard — but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
There are quite a lot of RSPB staff across the organisation feeling that way right now, and they are wondering what the motives and outcomes of the current review really are.
If, as we were told, the purpose of RSPB nature reserves was being looked at closely and the emphasis of some would be even more strongly on delivering nature conservation whereas that of others would be even more strongly on making money then no doubt we will see increases in conservation staffing and investment at some nature reserves and a sharp focus on the economics of revenue-making at others. We will see. The official narrative at the AGM went nowhere near what staff have been told about mothballing and disposal of some existing sites.
I noted last year that nature reserves had very little profile in last year’s AGM and that was reversed in spades this year. Whether all those mentions of our wonderful nature reserves was a snapping back to reality or whether it was to prepare the ground for cuts (tough love!) we might also see over the next months.
The new chair and other new Council members were duly elected with between 2% and 4% voting against – quite a revolt by RSPB standards. In the days there were 700 living members in a big room at an AGM the sight of 14-28 hands held up to vote against a motion was never seen in my experience.
Overall, the AGM felt like a sanitised affair which will not have strengthened the RSPB because it will not have strengthened the bonds between members, Council and staff, on which so much of the health of the organisation depends. I think a return to an in-person GM is essential for governance and a wider range of reasons.
Enough for now – I’ll return to this in my monthly newsletter next week. I expect there will be some comparing of notes going on about what people thought of the AGM, and what they think is going on in the RSPB between now and then. Comments on this blog are welcome.
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