The Perils of Outside Funding

The ongoing problems at the City Farm in Camden illustrate the problems that Councils are dealing with as they are seeking to balance their budgets.  It is not hard to see that the Farm is currently loss making and has received advance warning that Camden Council will cut funding in 2022, possibly altogether.

The Board are then left trying to get a plan that will be credible in the long term.  Staff have responded with a short term rescue plan which sounds as if it will tide the organisation over briefly but not for long. 

This follows a donor offering to plug the gap temporarily but at the cost of firing the Board.  Firing the Board in such circumstances would make it hard to recruit anyone else, and also difficult to implement a longer term survival package.   The latest plan to be accepted by the board also seems to include as yet unspecified changes to staff contracts, which sound as if they are likely to be changed in a fairly one sided way.

It also testifies to the extraordinary degree of control that some rich individuals feel they should have over public institutions.