RSPCA Basket Case Seeks Basket Maker

"The national RSPCA raised over $200 million dollars in a country that has one fifth the population of the U.S., and with one tenth the number of dogs. Scale it up any way you want to to get a U.S. equivalent -- it's either a billion dollars or two billion dollars a year."

The head of the RSPCA has stepped down, effective immediately, citing health concerns.

He leaves the RSPCA in a troubled state.  As The Telegraph notes:

The scale of the crisis at the charity was exposed in a leaked memo which emerged last year, written by the deputy chairman Paul Draycott.

It spoke of a "scary and dangerous" lack of planning, concerns about management and difficulties attracting new trustees.

The memo also spoke of "disillusioned staff'," citing "poor or even non-existent management training and career paths” for employees. 

Mr Draycott wrote "It is an axiom that when times are bad the best staff leave first – because they can – and we potentially end up with a rump of those who cannot get a job elsewhere."

The report also described fears of donations being affected by media coverage about the badger culls and foxhunting.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby turned down a request to become vice-patron amid the controversy at the charity.

But Bill Oddie, the environmentalist and broadcaster, dismissed his explanation he was too busy as "absolute nonsense."

Mr Oddie, who is himself a Vice-President of the animal welfare charity, challenged the Archbishop to explain publicly whether or not he was snubbing the organisation.

Right.  Let's hector and bully the Archbishop of Canterbury into doing a job he is not interested in doing instead of asking ourselves why the RSPCA is becoming a basket case of an organization.

Le's not wonder why the RSPCA spends such an enormous amount on street corner charity muggers" to solicit funds even as the same organization is putting down thousands of healthy animals and bullying whistleblowers who speak out about the practice.

As noted in an earlier post entitled The RSPCA: Massive Dollars for Minimal Impact:

The national RSPCA raised over £122 million  in 2009 -- the U.S. equivalent of $200 million dollars in a country that has one fifth the population of the U.S., and with one tenth the number of dogs.  

Scale it up any way you want to get a U.S. equivalent -- it's either a billion dollars or two billion dollars a year.

Wow! 

And what did the RSPCA do with all this money?  

The RSPCA itself claims their big victories in 2010 are these: 

• They protecting 100 abused horses;
• They opposed the state-sponsored cull of badgers to stop the spread of cattle tubeculosis;
• They pushed a food-labeling scheme called "Freedom Food" (which companies pay to be part of);
• They demonized wild animal acts in circuses (is that the biggest problem facing animals in the UK?);
• They pushed for better labeling of sausages (see "Freedom Food," above).

Not much of a track record for the U.S. equivalent of over a billion dollars a year!  

Clearly the RSPCA has lost its way, and at this point in the game the question is not who will lead the organization, but whether the organization, as it exists today, can survive its current structure.

There are two essential questions:

•  Should the enforcement of animal welfare laws be funded by the least efficient revenue-collection system imaginable (direct mail and street-corner charity begging). Should the welfare of animals in the U.K. be entrusted to beggars?
  .
• Should animal law enforcement ever be entrusted to people who impersonate policemen by putting on store-bought uniforms and store-bought badges but who, in fact, have no special rights or statutory powers of enforcement at all?

In the U.K., the public is well aware that the bang-for-the-pound at the RSPCA is astoundingly low, and this fact troubles at least some of the more forward-thinking within the organization.  

The RSPCA has even gone so far as to appoint an  "independent" review of its own prosecution service in order to try to get ahead of criticism it has taken from Attorney General Dominic Grieve and Parliament.

But true reform, if it is to come, will have to come from within.

Is that happening?  In a September 2013 internal memo, RSPCA deputy chairman Paul Draycott said that the organization had gotten "too political' and that campaigns against farmers could threaten the charity's future and deter donors.  He noted that there was a real danger that the organization could could go insolvent and that while "We have spent months discussing where we want to be in 10 years time... unless we develop a strategy for now we won't be here then." 

RSPCA chief executive Gavin Grant never did come up with a strategy for the future. Now that he is gone, I suspect few in the world of animal welfare in the U.K. will see his departure as much of a loss.  

The real question remains, however:  Is the internal structure of the RSPCA fundamentally flawed?

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