Insider dossier raises questions over finance, redundancies, governance and more

A bombshell report is set to rock a leading Scottish environmental charity as it gathers for its AGM.

Members of the John Muir Trust (JMT) are being asked to read a dossier, published on the John Muir Trust In Crisis website and compiled by a senior and respected former member of staff, which lays bare, in forensic detail, a series of calamities, financial problems and alleged governance failures which have brought the 40 year old charity to its knees.

The recent travails of the JMT – a major landowner in parts of Scotland – are well known.

Its chief executive, former Scottish Government civil servant David Balharry, was suspended for five months over unspecified “misconduct” allegations, though he was later allowed back into his post following an investigation.

The trust has also seen mass redundancies after a serious financial deficit was discovered, and many of its operations – including its renowned John Muir Award scheme – were either axed or curtailed.

TFN has been made aware, from multiple sources, of growing unease within JMT for some considerable time – much of it focussed around CEO Balharry, who joined the organisation in 2019.

Concerns have been crystalised in the new dossier compiled by the charity’s well known former media and public affairs manager Alan McCombes, who left the JMT earlier this year amid a staff exodus.

In the 38,000 word document, seen by TFN and which is now being circulated among JMT’s staff and members, McCombes, who had joined the charity in 2012, sets out in detail just what he says has gone wrong at the conservation group.

He breaks his analysis down to several sections, addressing staff morale, redundancies, its financial deficit, what he calls a subsequent “downward spiral”, serious governance failures and the process around the investigation into allegations made about Balharry (pictured below) and his subsequent reinstatement.

Staff Morale

The dossier details how the trust has been haemorrhaging long-serving, highly experienced staff across every department, with “consequent loss of continuity and deep knowledge, as well as a large network of relationships with communities, partners, government, and other agencies.”

It states that 19 of the 20 employees who were managed directly by the CEO have since resigned and that of 11 staff directly appointed by the CEO to the leadership team, only one, the head of income generation, now remains in post.

A collapse in morale is attested to by the fact that annual staff surveys show a serious loss of confidence and trust in senior management - between spring 2021 and spring 2022, staff responding positively to the question ‘would you recommend the trust as a place to work?’ dropped from 97% to just 30%. The staff survey for 2023 was held back till November, and its results remain unpublished.

The dossier points to a “grim connection between rapidly accelerating staff turnover, mental illness and low morale”.

Redundancies

The CEO announced mass compulsory redundancy programme of one third of the workforce over an all-staff online meeting on 14March, presenting it as a fait accompli. The dossier states that he refused to take questions or allow any further discussion but proceeded straight to the redundancy process.

The selection of 19 posts for redundancy out of a workforce of 65 ensured there was no statutory requirement for a 30-day collective consultation (the threshold being 20 employees regardless of workforce size). McCombes says this figure appeared to staff as a “cynical move, particularly when coupled with the curt announcement, preselected posts, and refusal to discuss any alternatives.”

Redundancies were approved by the Board of Directors without any dialogue with staff and the redundancy process turned into a debacle when 18 key members of staff who had been deemed essential walked out to find new jobs, while a further 13 staff were forced out by compulsory redundancy.

Financial deficit

Throughout 2023, serious concerns were raised over a growing cashflow crisis, specifically by the then chief finance officer and financial controller in advance of the Board’s Finance Committee meeting of June 2023. They reported payments to suppliers had been delayed or withheld due to lack of income.

When that money ran out, a £1 million loan was approved and on 8 November 2023 the chair, following a discussion with the now returned CEO, approved the use of £500k from the loan to fund ongoing running costs.

While this cashflow crisis escalated, no serious action was taken by the leadership to manage this fast-growing problem, either by scaling back expenditure or by organising any kind of fundraising appeal to the 11,000 membership or the wider public.

In December 2022, the Board of Trustees had approved a £2m deficit budget, and the annual Finance Report for 2022, presented to the AGM in November 2023, had stated: “The Trust has strong financial reserves and a robust fundraising strategy.” And on 5 December 2023, the chair sent a message to staff to report changes in finance personnel and stated explicitly: “our finances remain in a healthy position.” 

Despite that, a £600,000 “black hole” in the trust’s cashflow was subsequently discovered. This did not happen overnight, says the dossier, and is a “direct result of three years of extravagant and reckless expenditure, including excessive salary increases for a small group of senior managers, and a series of unfinished projects unsupported by clear business plans.”

While the report admits there is “no suggestion here of any financial impropriety”, it provides figures showing that a handful of senior employees (including the CEO) are earning salaries in excess of that taken by Scottish Government ministers.

Top level staff, it says, were “awarded substantial rises that were neither affordable, nor commensurate with the responsibilities of leading a small-to-medium sized charity.”

The dossier also calls into question spending decisions. It states: “Despite carrying a £2m deficit into 2023, and in defiance of expert internal and external advice the CEO and chair rushed into the purchase of a small 18-hectare strip of land on the NC500 route, with 10 ageing holiday lodges, magnifying the scale of the financial crisis.”

The JMT’s “downward spiral”

The dossier states that as a result of the compulsory redundancy programme combined with changes driven by the CEO over several years to reduce the number of staff working on the land, the number of jobs supported by the trust on its properties is among the lowest in Scotland per sq. km.

This leaves it potentially in breach of the Scottish Land Commission’s Land Rights and Responsibilities protocol.

Damningly, it states that some communities in the north west of Scotland now regard the John Muir Trust as a “negligent absentee landowner”, and in at least one area, a hostile community buy out is under consideration.

A number of acclaimed Trust initiatives on its landholdings which work with local schools and communities are now at a standstill with little prospect of a resumption anytime in the foreseeable future.

And the hugely popular John Muir Award scheme, which is famed for getting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds closer to nature and wild places, is now “on its knees”, with all new registrations having ceased and thousands of partnerships with schools youth groups and community organisations torn up.

Governance

In the four months following the AGM in November 2023, more than half the board trustees stood down, leaving just five elected trustees and two co-opted trustees (out of a total of 15). In the six months prior to that, a further five trustees had stepped down, bringing the total loss of board members in the space of a year to 13. The dossier states that most of those resigned because they had lost confidence in the governance of the JMT.

Nine former trustees and staff members have submitted complaints in recent times to the Scottish charity regulator OSCR, which has confirmed that it has opened an investigation into the JMT’s governance, which is still ongoing.

The dossier criticises a “clear shift away from open and collective leadership within towards a highly concentrated and centralised power structure that has gone hand in hand with a lack of transparency and a culture of secrecy” and says that key financial decisions been “marked by serious lack of due diligence”. The redundancy debacle is included in this – with these having “calamitous consequences” for the trust.

Investigation into the CEO

The dossier says that the investigation of complaints into the CEO was “tainted by bias against the complainants and compromised by the controlling influence of the chair over the whole process, despite a clear conflict of interest”.

Further, the investigation was further undermined because staff allegedly did not feel safe giving evidence because they feared reprisals, with no assurances of protection from the Board to allay these fears.

It states that the decision by the chair to “fully exonerate” the CEO was “perverse” when set against evidence and that access to the investigator’s reports and conclusions was confined to a few trustees selected by the chair, when the entire documentation should have been available to trustees.

In a preamble to the dossier, McCombes reflects on his personal background and work with the JMT, including how he initially welcomed Balharry’s appointment.

He writes: “In the first year or so after David took up his role, which coincided with the Covid crisis, the Trust seemed to be on the start of a dynamic upward trajectory. A series of projects were initiated, including the North West 2045 Vision and Reimagining Strathaird; the management and staff team was bolstered by talented new recruits with refreshing ideas; cutting edge policies were developed; the Trust’s political influence reached new heights; a high quality film was commissioned setting out the Trust’s approach to deer management; work began with creative artists to develop plans for a touring theatre roadshow across the Highlands.”

However, things soon began to change. McCombes says: “Over the same period, however, early warning signs of trouble ahead became increasingly visible. While there was no absence of broad vision, the micromanagement of some areas of work by the CEO, particularly related to our properties, began to cause a degree of demoralisation on the ground.

“His overt hostility to the John Muir Award had a similar impact on other members of staff. As the Trust emerged from the Covid lockdown, his abrasive and divisive management style became more apparent. He began to demand unswerving personal loyalty from those he managed, and clearly struggled to handle genuine differences of opinion. Instead of inspiring and motivating staff, he seemed to actively provoke conflict.

“More generally, there was unease about what appeared to be the CEO’s arrogance and disrespectful attitude towards everything that had gone before. The phrase “from the kitchen table to the boardroom table” became the repetitive mantra of the CEO. The phrase downplayed the monumental achievements of the charity over the decades.

“The CEO had inherited an organisation that over the previous 37 years had grown from a band of four to a highly respected charity with a multi-million pound turnover, an impressive portfolio of mountain and coastal landscapes, 11,000 members across the UK and tens of thousands of followers on social media, a hugely admired John Muir Award scheme delivered to tens of thousands of mainly young people each year, and a formidable reputation for campaigning. Instead of seeing his role as building upon these achievements, the CEO appeared disparaging to all that had gone before and at times it felt to some staff that he was determined to tear down the whole edifice and start afresh.”

He continues: “In 2020, in an online presentation to all staff members, the CEO presented an image of a bus and stated bluntly that anyone who wanted to get off the bus should get up and go. The clear implication was that he was the driver and the rest of the staff were expected to come along as passengers in whatever direction and at whatever speed he chose. Or they could leave. At the time it felt like a clumsy metaphor. In retrospect, in now looks like a statement of intent, and a portent of what was to come.”

The dossier concludes: “The failures of the past two years – plunging staff morale, a sky-high turnover, financial ineptitude, mass compulsory redundancies, wholesale resignations from the board, a torrent of allegations of misconduct by the CEO, widespread resentment towards the Trust from communities around our largest properties, a breakdown in confidence in the leadership – need to be addressed collectively by the staff, the trustees and the wider membership.”

Read the full report here.

A spokesperson for the John Muir Trust said: “As a charity, we recognise our responsibilities to OSCR, staff, Members and supporters and welcome open discussion and scrutiny in support of our ongoing development. Following a difficult period the board commissioned two reviews into events of the past 18 months. These reviews contain recommendations and lessons learned that have either been implemented or are in the process. A summary of the first review is on our website, the results of the second review will be presented at the AGM and made available shortly after.

“The Trust is now on a stronger financial footing, and we have a dedicated team of professionals working efficiently to deliver the Trust strategy to protect wild places for the benefit of present and future generations.”

The charity's 41st AGM takes place on Saturday, 14 September.