Cafod modifies restructure plans following complaints

Catholic aid agency Cafod has apologised to its volunteers and says it will modify its plans to restructure following complaints that it did not liaise adequately over its proposals, writes Joanna Moorhead.

“We understand that we did not communicate as well as we could have and we will learn from this process,” the charity said this week. “We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through a period of change.”

The most contentious elements of Cafod’s development plan, announced at the end of last year, concerned the scaling back of its diocesan offices. Currently, the organisation has 21 staffed offices across England and Wales, and in its original proposals it envisaged instead creating four regional teams. The charity is looking to make savings of £3 million.

However, as a result of feedback from its non-staffers the new plan is to have a volunteer base in each diocese, but to reduce the number of staff in these regional offices over the next two years. Currently Cafod has the equivalent of 37.4 staff jobs in these offices. That will gradually reduce to 26.5 posts over the next couple of years.

“We have listened carefully to your concerns and we have modified our original proposals,” says the charity’s response document. “We appreciate in particular your concern about maintaining a local presence in each diocese.”

Complaints that Wales was not sufficiently catered for in the original proposals has led to a beefing-up of plans for the country’s Cafod representation, and additional resources, in the shape of a fixed-term post, have now been promised.

Feedback also included suggestions that the costs of upkeep of Cafod’s London HQ, Romero House, were too high, and some of the charity’s supporters suggested moving outside the capital. In its latest document, the charity says that London-based staff will work in the dioceses more often.

“For example, our professional fund-raisers will attend volunteer meetings regularly in order to listen to you,” say managers.

In a covering letter to Cafod supporters, the charity’s director, Chris Bain, emphasises that it is essential to make savings, and stresses that these will be made through reductions in spending at head office as well as in locally based teams.