the big issue 1

‘What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.’

Measure for Measure, 5.1.530; Plautus, Trinummus, 2.2.48.

I like to quote The Norton Shakespeare because it makes me seem smarter than I am. Measure for Measure can be read in a number of different ways. One of the themes of the play that emerges is that what is legal is not necessarily moral. I’m not suggesting that Grand Central Savings, (GCS) registered Charity No. SCO39225, has done anything illegal, but as a member of the bank and having a partner that worked there, I’ve followed the story of its development from the Big Issue bank and its split from The Big Issue Foundation with some interest. I feel I know the characters involved. The distance in the Oxford English Dictionary between charity and charlatan is not that far, six entries or the flip of a page tells a different story. Measure for Measure is also a biblical injunction from the gospel of Matthew. It resonates with the old-fashioned idea that how you should treat others is how you should be treated.

            Make no mistake charity is a full-time business. An extract from the Scottish Charity Register sets out GCS’s Income and Expenditure. In 2009 the annual return of income registered was £313 209. Registered expenditure for that year was £0. A breakdown of their income comes from fundraising and other agencies. Tap on their website and you’ll be unable to make a donation. GCS’s income is almost wholly derived from grants from The Lottery Fund and Scottish government and, like the Lottery Fund, they create no product, but simply move money from one place to another. For the financial year 2010 GCS’s income was £571 320 and their expenditure £495 820. In the financial year 2011 income was £796 550 and their expenditure £770 865. In terms of finance this is there most successful year posted. The figures for the year ending 2013 are not available. Figures for the year 2012 show a decline in income -- £650 515 to 647 051. The proposed outlets in Aberdeen and Clydebank had not opened. Business according to these figures is failing and falling.

‘Costs of   charitable activities’ are a catch-all term that accounts for this expenditure. The largest part of this is the salaries, which are usually 70% to 80% of fixed costs. Let me do some charitable accounting. If Mary Russell was on a salary of £15 000 on March 2008 and just over £16 000 on July 2013 and the other teller in the Glasgow Branch were on less as were the two tellers in Greenock and, perhaps also the supervising teller on slightly more-- four annual salaries are less than £70 000. There is also a young girl that works in the office which would take wage expenditure up to roughly £80 000. Two-line managers above Mary would be on more money. Roughly wage expenditure would be £130 000. Then there is, of course, a personal secretary to The Chief Executive Jackie Cropper. Wage expenditure would be roughly £170 000. How much does Jackie Cropper Chief Executive pay herself for managing a charity business, which according to these figures is in decline? She is on the board of trustees which decide this sort of thing and seems a conflict of interest, but let’s be charitable and allow the Chief Executive four or five times Mary’s salary.     

Other fixed costs are office space. Charities as we know, from the number of them on our high streets, pay peppercorn rents and little or no rates. GCS has three offices, one of which is Unit 4, 15 Carlton Court. A former employee of the Glasgow Association of Mental Health informed me their organisation moved out of Carlton Court to find cheaper office accommodation in Glasgow City centre. There is an office suite-- for management-- in Enoch Square, Glasgow, although I understand there has been a recent retrenchment, with some mangers moving back across the river to Carlton Court.  River City Homes in Greenock is the only other GCS’s office outside central Glasgow.

‘Charity’ as one of the phrases used by The Oxford English Dictionary to illustrate the meaning of the word, ‘begins at home’. GCS like any other business likes other organisations or local authorities to bear the costs. River Clyde Homes in Greenock, until recently, for example, provided office space. They were also willing to pay the wages of three, then later as reserves ran out, two seconded staff, to work for GCS from Scottish Government Funding of £175 028. This is no longer the case.  GCS have not been able to replicate this sweetheart deal with other charities or local authorities. GCS’s offices in Aberdeen and Clydebank are still at the planning stage and have been so for a number of years. Managers have been asked to leave, or being sacked, depending how you look at it, by Chief Executive Jackie Cropper, which may be connected to this commercial stasis.

There are savings -- Jackie Cropper works from home in Edinburgh, a virtual-office space, on a Friday. Cynics may call this a long weekend. Over the years I’ve heard a lot about Jackie Cropper, but I’ve never met her. I know, for example, that she has a habit of  finishing conversations, or monologues on her part,  with Cropperism’s of ‘blah, de-blah, de- blah’, as if the other person should know what she means.  I know through a kind of osmosis she flings in the odd swear word ‘feck’ to give a frisson of her working class Wester Hailles’s roots.  Cynics may say Mary Russell got her first job with The Big Issue Foundation through nepotism because she knew Brendan Hillhouse (and later, higher up the hierarchy, Jim Brown an on-going consultant with GCS) and in the same way Jackie Cropper was brought on board by her pal Tricia Hughes. Mary and Jackie go back a long way. It seems strange that only a month as passed and I was listening to Mary spieling another Cropperism when she told the Chief Executive she was thinking about retiring in six months.

‘There’s no way you’re that age. I just can’t believe it. No way. And no way are you retiring at 62.  I always tell everybody that Mary is Grand Central Savings. Everybody raves about you. When I bring anybody in you are the first person I introduce them to. There’s no way you’ll be retiring. You’ll be here to you’re at least 67.’ 

Jackie Cropper, the self-made-charity queen, also keeps in constant touch with her staff through the extensive network of cameras that film each bank transaction involving tellers and customer. A charity worker who is employed to help offenders  back into work and who was shown round GCS told me, ‘they were obviously very proud of their cameras’.  One of her management staff will pass on messages that Jackie doesn’t like the bank door being wedged open for workman. Jackie doesn’t think we need an afternoon tea break…Jackie doesn’t like you leaving your plastic bags lying about the kitchen area…and these edicts will be prioritised. She is the Chief Executive working from home.   

This monitoring of staff is an abuse of technology and has everything to do with inequality. But it’s not all one-sided. A recently employed staff member at the River Clyde Home's office went for lunch on a Friday and texted that she wasn’t coming back. Working as a teller in the Glasgow branch Mary Russell and Tracy, the other bank teller, were at the sharp end of the money business.   In the video, ‘Bridging the Gap,’ produced by Blackrock Productions Community Interest Company for the manifesto message to Scottish Parliament in 2011 a message flashed up on screen that up to the year 2011 £10 million had been paid out in the previous three years by GCS. Like most banks GCS like to be charitable with the figures they offer for audit or when appealing for lucrative grants. Up to a third of their client base will open an account and fail to close it, but will have no other dealings with GCS. Another legal, but unethical practice, common to most banks is when customers die their funds remain frozen. This is a source of working capital for banks.

An estimated 80% of this £10 million would have been paid out by Mary Russell and Tracy, the other working teller. Anyone working with bags of coal, bits of steel-plate or, in Mary Russell’s case, money, become distracted and makes mistakes. I’m going to look briefly at one example of this to show the differences between what Kristina Dell called ‘Snooping Bosses’ and the snooped upon workers.   

Six months ago Mary Russell received a formal written warning from GCS. Even now, after being sacked, she says ‘If I’m wrong I’m wrong. I’ll hold my hands up and admit to making a mistake. But even though I got a written warning, I didn’t do anything wrong.’

Mary claimed  ‘B… a customer with GCS came into lift money from his account. I brought his picture up in the usual way, but I knew right away he wasn’t who he said he was. He was a bit thinner in the cheeks and his hair was different. I thought it was B’s brother, but it definitely wasn’t who he said he was. I contacted Margaret in the back office. She came through and was very apologetic towards “B…” and asked me to pay him out. I said I didn’t think it was B… but she was flustered and adamant I pay him out and I did. Later B… came into collect his money and, as the wrong person had been paid out, he too was paid. There was no police involvement’.  

Mary Russell said she was embarrassed when she met David Scott near Asda in Clydebank Shopping Centre on Monday afternoon 22^nd July 2013.   Both were surprised to see each other for different reasons. Mary said she thought Alan stayed somewhere near Glasgow town centre. She’d known him for a few years as a client of GCS and although obviously gay was one of their straighter and more articulate clients. He asked why she wasn’t working. Mary said she didn’t know what to say, but she told him the truth--she’d been sacked.  He was shocked. More so when she told him why she’d been sacked. She recalled him saying, “But Mary everybody down there likes you. You’re always helpful and pleasant. You’re always helping people. I can’t believe they sacked you for doing a humanitarian thing. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m not going to see you again”. She recalled him giving her a hug. And she’d cried at that. She’s done a lot of crying lately.

On the 16^th July 2013 Mary Russell received a registered letter, Notification of a Disciplinary Hearing. The disciplinary meeting was to be held at 9.30am in GCS’s Head Office, Station House, Suite 4.1, 34 St. Enoch Square Glasgow. Isabel Keaney, System Support Officer, although senior to Mary, worked alongside her as a bank teller for a number of years in the Glasgow branch. Ms Keaney was, however, at the Disciplinary Hearing in her official capacity as line manager. In attendance was Natalya Macholla, Head of Support Services, a recently created position in the organisation. Mary said she was determined not to cry, but even in the re-telling of that meeting her eyes still bubble up. Ms Macholla informed Mary that the police would not be involved.

            Prior to this Mary had a discussion, also at Head Office, with Isabel Keaney (Line-manager) with Elaine Gilmartin (taking minutes) an extract which is presented below with the customer’s name hidden to protect his identity.

            ‘…MR became very upset again. MR advised that when A…presented his book it was not signed, there was no top copy, MR said he asked her to sign the book, he said words along the lines of “hen you gonny sign it a canny” MR described him as “very agitated” MR advised that she then took the book and signed it, MR confirmed she thought about writing a couple of lines to explain but she did not and she signed the book. MR then stated “I know I should not have done it, no argument here, I should not have done it”.

            An A4- lined page, black biro, photocopy written in block capitals, of Mary’s alleged misdemeanour, which she was asked to write on the 4^th July by her office manager, Margaret Pollock, was appended, alongside the latter’s fuller and type-written script.

Mary wrote: ‘A…Z...came into bank to withdraw money. A…Z…is not sound of mind. Gave him book to sign on receiving book back from him noticed top copy not there. Asked where it was. He replied he didn’t know what I was talking about!!! Eventually he brought slip out of his pocket. Not signed I asked him to sign. He said he couldn’t, asked if could sign. I said o.k. & signed.’

            Ms Pollock’s account has the transaction date, time, slip number, customer name, account number and the amount involved.

‘I noticed Mary had not asked the customer to remove his hat (which she finally did at the end of the transaction). Mary filled the green slip in and gave the customer the book over to sign. She went to get some money from the tin. While she was doing that, I observed the customer tearing out the slip, folding it and putting it in his pocket without signing it. Mary starts to count out some money on her worktop for the customer, then takes the book back from the customer. She noticed that he had torn out the first copy and asks him from it back and gives him the second copy as a receipt. She then counted the money out for the customer. Then she asked him to take his hat off for the camera.

Mary then took both remaining copies of the slip to teller position 3. When she returns to her position I saw her on camera writing on the slip.

At 15.25pm I observed her talking to Tracy about the transaction.

11.15 (today 4^th July) I asked Mary about the transaction. She told me about A… tearing the slip out and she said at first she thought she had torn the first slip out along with the previous customer’s, so she asked if A…if he had it and he pulled it out of his pocket. She asked for it back and then gave him the other copy.

I told her that she should never have signed a customer’s slip for them. She said that A…had said that he didn’t think he could sign it. Mary told him that if he put a cross on it then she would sign it for him. Which she did.’

            Mary’s recall of the event is not as measured as Ms Pollock’s. Mary said that she was annoyed at that time for having to write out a report about a mistake that she had freely admitted to. The customer involved reminded her of her son, with a similar chaotic life and major mental health problems. She said that she hadn’t been sleeping. Her son was at that time literally driving her mad and she shouldn’t have been at work. Mary suggests Ms Pollock and Ms Keaney were both aware of this.  

             Mary said she also confronted Ms Pollock when she was asked to write a statement about her alleged misdemeanour and if it went any further she’d tell (Chief Executive Jackie Cropper) about what had happened a month previous.

‘That would be opening a whole can of worms,’ was Ms Pollock’s recalled reply.

            Mary reminded Ms Pollock that a month previous, at the end of a normal working day they had in excess of ten thousand pounds in their bank, which they were not insured to keep in the safe on the premises overnight. Ms Pollock and Ms Keaney had walked across the Jamaica Street Bridge and deposited it the overnight safe in The Bank of Scotland, which was normal procedure.   Mary’s understanding was that for insurance purposes two or more people were required to take up to five thousand pounds from their bank to The Bank of Scotland. Three people for five to eight thousand. Four or more people for eight to ten thousand pounds. Mary admitted she would have been unwilling to carry such a large amount. In recalling this  Mary said Ms Pollock’s put an end to the subject by stating: ‘That’s what Isabel [Ms Kearney] wants’. In terms of legality it was the equivalent of doing thirty-five miles per hour in a thirty zone. But there was no one filming them and no police involvement thought necessary.

Mary booked an appointment with her General Practitioner the following day, Friday 5^th July and was told she was unfit for work, given an authorised note not to return to work  for two weeks (to be reviewed later) and prescribed a course of antidepressants. That morning she received a phone call from Ms Keaney telling her she was suspended from work pending an investigation ‘that you falsely replicated a signature of a GCS customer’. 

The option available to GCS were outlined in a letter Mary Russell had to sign for to prove she had received it the following day.  

In a letter to Mary Russell, Outcome of Disciplinary Meeting- 18^th July 2013- Summary Dismissal.

The other options available were: Verbal Warning, First Written Warning, Final Written Warning, Statutory Discipline and Dismissal Procedure.

Management had gone through this due process. Examples of Gross Misconduct are appended on a separate sheet and include: ‘disruptive behaviour, serious contravention of safety and hygiene rules, smoking in non-designated area… Fraud…Fraud or the deliberate falsification of records in relation to any aspects of the organisation’s business’ but there is a rider on these bulleted examples ‘(the list is not exhaustive)’. In management speak Gross Misconduct is whatever management designate it as.

In the letter dated 18^th July and signed by Ms Macholla what is foregrounded is the correct legal procedure has been followed. Personal relationships are not personal. Facts speak for themselves and are not contextual. Nothing can be done. The question I would ask is shouldn’t registered charities be more charitable with employees’ terms and conditions than commercial businesses, or is there no particular difference?

I would cite the case of Pauline who worked for the Big Issue Bank around the period 2003 (I’ve changed her name for reasons that will become obvious) and when the accounts were reviewed was allegedly caught stealing, and admitted the theft to feed a drug addiction. There was no police involvement. She received counselling and was kept on administrative duties. She was then employed by the Big Issue Foundation selling the magazines to vendors. Ironically, this was Mary Russell’s old job, but the terms of employment were changed and although Mary won her case for unfair dismissal, still lost her job. Such was the topsy-turvy world of the Big Issue Foundation, Pauline was paid more than Mary had been receiving, even though she was less qualified for the technically new, but old position.  There’s a kind of grim comedy in all this that I’m sure Shakespeare would have made much of. Measure for Measure.

                        Strip away the jargon and it’s a simple operation. GCS receive money from another major bank, whose network their bank is internally linked to. They pass on money received to their customers, the majority of which is DSS and housing benefits. One of their clients in the video, ‘Bridging the Gap,’ produced by Blackrock Productions Community Interest Company for the manifesto message to Scottish Parliament in 2011 said he liked the bank because he didn’t get into any overdraft difficulties. GCS does not offer overdraft facilities. Jackie Cropper who appears at the beginning of the video link who is Chief Executive Officer of GCS and also chairs the board of Blackrock Production Company should also have suggested that this manifesto message to Scottish Parliament was misleading and should be edited. The message to The Scottish Parliament in 2011 asks for mercy for the poor, but extends little or none.  

            One of the messages also flashed up on screen was that ‘It can cost up to £140 to gain suitable identification for mainstream banks’.  This is a major selling point for GCS. People with chaotic lives do not have passports and driving licenses. Post Offices will open an account for those that produce birth lines. The cost here is close to the £1 specified to open a GCS’s bank account.

The last message flashed up onscreen is prophetic: ‘cutbacks will mean a greater demand for GCS’. This I believe to be true. Greater poverty is a boon for the growth of any charity. We’ve not heard the last Cropperism. Mary Russell’s post has not been filled. There’s talk of ‘remote-tellers’ being employed. Measure for measure they’re cheaper for management, don’t answer back and are easy to get rid of. Just the kind of thing any good charity needs.