The country’s largest dementia charity, the Alzheimer’s Society, has been accused of spending as much as £750,000 on payouts to staff who agreed to sign non-disclosure agreements, according to a whistleblower complaint leaked to the Guardian.

The complaint says the use of the NDAs could be seen as an attempt to silence staff at the organisation, which insiders claim has been beset by allegations of bullying and a toxic management culture.

One source who spoke to the Guardian separately claimed the charity’s long-serving chief executive officer, Jeremy Hughes, had an “explosive temper” and displayed bullying behaviour towards staff.

It was announced last year that Hughes would be stepping down in April 2020. At the time, the charity was forced to deny his departure was related to claims of bullying which surfaced on social media via an anonymous Twitter account, subsequently deleted.

Hughes, who co-chaired a dementia friendly communities champion group for the former prime minister David Cameron, is due to take up a new role as chief executive of Samaritans in May.

It has now emerged that a complaint was made to the Charity Commission in February 2018 by a former employee of the Alzheimer’s Society. The complaint raised concerns about the use of settlement agreements with non-disclosure provisions and the sums paid to settle claims.

Despite the serious nature of the claims, the commission failed to investigate the complaint or even contact the whistleblower – an oversight the watchdog now admits was a mistake.

In the 11-page complaint, the whistleblower said the large payouts by the charity “may also leave the society open to criticism … that it is silencing staff and critics of the organisation, undermining its stated values”.

The complainant said they were informed “that the total cost of settlements in the last few years is over £750,000 for staff leaving the society, all with non-disclosure settlement agreement”.

The Alzheimer’s Society says the figure is inaccurate. It declined to give its own sum. It said it only used settlements for “legitimate reasons”.

The contents of the whistleblower complaint have emerged amid rising wider concern over the use of NDAs by organisations dealing with staff complaints. A House of Commons report last year warned “allegations of unlawful discrimination and harassment in the workplace are routinely covered up by employers” using NDAs.

The charity, which was launched in 1979, invests in dementia care research, runs campaigns and provides 3,000 local support services. It received income of £107m last year, with £80m from public donations. It has received £2.4m in taxpayers’ money over the last two years.

An investigation by the Guardian based on information detailed in the complaint and interviews with former employees reveals claims that:

A number of staff were paid off and signed NDAs after submitting bullying complaints about Michael Dent, the charity’s former director of fundraising, who in February last year moved to a senior role at the World Wildlife Fund. Dent did not provide a separate comment.

One former senior member of staff claimed Hughes, who has been chief executive of the charity for nearly a decade, had an “explosive temper” and displayed bullying behaviour, including shouting at colleagues and undermining them.

A senior manager received a £57,000 payout in 2017 after being accused of discrimination by a junior staff member returning from maternity leave. The money was paid despite an investigation into the complaint finding “mainly … in favour of the female employee” returning from maternity leave. According to the complaint to the Charity Commission , the settlement also covered the £5,000 cost of the manager’s legal fees and, in addition, approximately £2,500 was paid by the charity to fund counselling sessions for the manager.

The settlements and NDAs were signed off either by Brett Terry, the former director of people and organisational development, or Hughes, in different cases. They worked closely with each other and, according to the claims of the senior ex-staffer, “to cross one was to cross them both and to incur their wrath and bullying”. The pair previously worked together at the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer. Terry moved to a similar role at the NSPCC in January 2018, where he earns £103,000 a year. He did not provide a separate comment.

The charity spent thousands of pounds on hiring the law firm Mishcon de Reya, which worked on the settlement agreements. The complaint claims that in one case, the legal firm charged £1,500 plus VAT and that the market rate for London legal outfits for equivalent work would have been between £350 and £500.

Claims about the charity’s handling of grievances are detailed in a 2018 complaint to the Charity Commission. A copy of the complaint, seen by the Guardian, flagged concerns about a series of issues, including “the disproportionate and excessive amounts being wasted on settling matters” and the “lack of accountability in the decision-making process to agree to the value of the complaints”.

While many complaints made by staff who received settlements and signed NDAs were considered legitimate grievances, the whistleblower expressed concerns that some were not – meaning the charity was simultaneously viewed as a “soft touch”.

The former staffer, whose family also made a donation to the Alzheimer’s Society after their mother died of dementia, added in the document: “I am aghast that charitable donations are being spent so recklessly and without the proper risk assessments or effective governance. My family sincerely regret the donation that we made in light of the use of charitable funds on these unnecessary payments.”

Separately, a former senior employee at the charity told the Guardian they were shocked at the behaviour they claim they witnessed by Hughes, who is understood to earn up to £160,000 a year.

“Jeremy was well known within the organisation as someone with an explosive temper,” they said, “someone who didn’t appreciate being questioned even when this was when his staff were trying to understand what he wanted or what decision was being made.”

The source alleged they had witnessed many instances of his poor behaviour, including shouting at junior staff and undermining senior staff, including trustees.

They added: “It was widely known that to challenge Jeremy was career-limiting. Jeremy and Brett Terry, the HR director, worked very closely together; to cross one was to cross them both and to incur their wrath and bullying.” They described “a culture of fear, or at least ‘keep your head down and don’t tell’”.

Corinne Mills, the Alzheimer’s Society’s director of people and organisational development, said the charity took the allegations “very seriously” and that it had “zero tolerance” of bullying.

“We have a well-established and robust internal complaints procedure and whistleblowing policy,” she went on, noting that internal processes were regularly reviewed. “We strongly refute the figure of £750k quoted for settlements. We have only used settlement agreements for legitimate reasons and only where other options for resolution have been explored.”

The Charity Commission’s director of operations, Helen Earner, confirmed that a complaint was received about the charity in February 2018 but that the commission failed to act. The watchdog is now looking into the complaint. “We should have followed up on the complaint, and that did not happen,” she said.

“We acknowledge that in failing to follow up on the complaint at the time, we did not meet the high standards we set ourselves, and which the public rightly expect.”

• Footnote added 30 May 2020: On 4 May 2020 the Charity Commission reported on the outcome of its regulatory case involving the Alzheimer’s Society, finding “no evidence that confidentiality clauses used by the charity were designed to or would have had the effect of preventing staff from reporting any whistleblowing, bullying, harassment or discrimination complaint. Allegations reported in the national media around the amount of money paid out in settlements were not substantiated by the evidence the Commission saw.” See press release here.

The article was also amended on 30 May 2020 to better reflect the terms in which the Alzheimer’s Society disputed the alleged figure for settlements.





