Governance & Finances

Posted on 18 Jul 2018

Promoting Transparency at The Wheel

We believe that charities should emphasise their impact and trust-worthiness through transparency to the public.

In The Wheel, we are committed to maximising transparency and demonstrating clear accountability in how we do our work.

As a result, we have adopted in full a range of ‘good practice’ standards: we are in the process of adopting the Charities Regulator's new Charities Governance Code (and had previously been a founding member and early adopter of the now retired Governance Code for Community, Voluntary & Charitable Organisations); the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) for our annual reporting and all of the guidelines and recommendations for charities published by the Charities Regulator.

This website is one of our primary channels for delivering transparency in how we do our work and we encourage anyone with ideas on how we can do better to contact our colleague Tony Ward at finance@wheel.ie.

In order to make information about important things like finances and salaries as easy as possible to find, we provide the most pertinent points from the Director’s Report and the Audited Accounts from 2018 below.

In 2018, Rotha (trading as The Wheel) had an income of €1,692,753 and spent €1,665,276 on services for its members, and supporting their needs and those of the sector. This income represented an increase of just under 11% when compared to 2017 whereas expenditure was higher by just over 11% compared to 2017.

Income

Financial performance and income diversification

In 2018 both statutory and income from other public sources (EU) performed strongly as did earned income from membership, training delivery and other projects.

The main differences between income for 2018 of €1.692m and income in 2017 of €1.527m is the Spark Change project, an eighteen-month programme funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which contributed just over €148,000 in 2018. There were also general increases in income across a number of earned income lines while the project that generated the Carnegie (UK) Trust income of €84,000 in 2017 ceased on 31 December 2017.

Incoming Resources:

Total income: €1,692,753

Community and Voluntary Pillar: €73,476
Scheme to Support National Organisations: €89,923
National Training Fund: €375,000
Europe for Citizens: €50,000
National Rural Network: €129,364
Access Europe: €64,704
Other EU funding: €109,339
Annual conference: €54,915
Training events and contracts: €187,659
Environmental Protection Agency contract: €148,660
FundingPoint: €43,436
Membership income: €247,409
Sponsorship and other income: €24,043
Newman's Own Funding: €20,574 -
ResourcePoint: €41,117
Charity Impact Awards: €33,134

Expenditure

The major elements of expenditure in 2018 were on staffing costs related to: member-services, training information provision, research and advocacy; and secondly, on the implementation of the National Training Fund co-funded Sector Skills programme of specific training and supports.

Total expenditure: €1,665,276

Salaries

Senior management compromised of the Chief Executive Officer, Director of Public Policy, Director of Programmes, Director of Business Development and Director of Finance.

The salaries paid to the highest earners are as follows where the salary range is provided in steps of €10,000 per annum:

€60,000 - €70,000: 3 people
€70,000 - €80,000: 1 person
€90,000 - €100,000: 1 person

The CEO's remuneration package comprised of a gross salary of €88,768 and income protection benefit in kind, of €2,308, totalling €91,076, plus an employer's pension contribution of 6% of gross salary which was €5,326. In 2018, the total value of the CEO remuneration package in full was therefore €96,402.

The Wheel has a staff team based in an office in Dublin, and headed by a Chief Executive Officer who reports directly to the board through the Chairperson. A management team of four reports to the Chief Executive and all other staff report to members of the management team.

Meet the Team

Decision-making?

Decisions reserved for only the board of directors to make include:

The Company’s strategic plans and annual operating budgets;
Projects outside the scope of the strategic plan;
Business acquisitions and disposals;
Decisions on Litigation;
Appointment/Removal of Subgroup Chairs and Members;
Appointment/Removal of Chief Executive Officer;
Appointment/Removal of Auditors;
Approval of Borrowing/Finance Facilities;
Approval of Contracts with term exceeding one year or financial liability on The Wheel exceeding €60,000;
Annual Review of Risk and Internal Control;
Approval of new staff positions at director level;
Approval of changes to membership categories or rates.

Further Documentation

Feedback to the Board

The Wheel is eager to strengthen and develop channels of accountability between our members and the Board. To that end, we have a special Membership-Board Accountability Policy, which includes the following provisions:

The board, through the CEO and Director of Public Policy, will regularly report to members about progress being made in implementing The Wheel’s “Stronger Charities, Stronger Communities” strategy.

Members will are invited to provide their feedback directly to the Board (via a dedicated email address: boardofdirectors@wheel.ie and at our member forums across the country). Feedback and comments received by the board will be recorded and reviewed annually by the board.

Download our Board Policy document (PDF).

The Importance of Collaboration

The Wheel's strategy, Stronger Charities, Stronger Communities (2017 - 2020), demonstrates how much we value collaborative working in the Irish community and voluntary, charity and social enterprise sector.

We value collaborative working as a way of increasing the value and impact of our work and strengthening our sector.

Collaboration in Action

In 2018 we collaborated with a wide range of partners to influence policy and deliver programmes and services. Key amongst these were our wide range of national and EU-funded programmes, and our various engagements with the Charities Regulator.

In addition to the snapshot above, you can download a list of our collaborations below.

Our Collaborations

The Wheel initiated and completed a comprehensive review of our communications channels in 2017, for the purpose of ensuring our adherence to the forthcoming GDPR legislation, as well as to assist our members in preparing for the same.

The Wheel is involved in a significant amount of communication with various stakeholders from across the Irish community and voluntary sector, as well as the wider society. The purpose of our privacy policy in that regard is to be as open and transparent as we possibly can be about the types of information we collect and what we do with it. Our privacy policy has been revised and updated in accordance with GDPR requirements.

Read Privacy Policy

Complaints Policy

The Wheel has a vigorous complaints policy, put in place for the purpose of upholding the standards and quality of the interaction of all representatives of The Wheel with our members, the general public and other stakeholders.

We have designed our complaints policy to be as straightforward and efficient as possible, to ensure that any individual or organisation who may see fit to lodge a formal complaint that The Wheel takes their feedback and input seriously and in the spirit of full openness.