• About us
• Contact us
• Subscribe
• Advertising
• Accessibility
• Bulletins
• Newsfeeds

• Register
• Login

Profile: The Etherington era: rolling out phase two

Third Sector, 26 March 2008

Stuart Etherington

Stuart Etherington has been chief executive of the NCVO for 14 years and has overseen some key changes in the voluntary sector. He tells John Plummer there is still a lot more to do.

When Stuart Etherington became chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in 1994, John Major was Prime Minister and Take That were in the charts with Everything Changes.

The voluntary sector certainly has changed. Back then, politicians seemed more interested in the Cones Hotline than in charities, and the preferred method of funding was grants, not contracts. But one thing hasn't changed: Etherington, 53, remains in charge of the NCVO, having not only lived through, but also instigated, some of the sector's most momentous developments.

It was Etherington who appointed Nicholas Deakin as chair of the Independent Commission on the Future of the Voluntary Sector, which spawned the Office of the Third Sector, the Charities Act 2006 and the Compact. Under his leadership, the NCVO has grown from a £3m organisation with 480 members and 60 staff to a £14m operation with 5,600 members and 110 staff. It is difficult to think of anyone who has done more to shape the modern voluntary sector.

But 14 years is a long time in any job. These are difficult times at the NCVO, which is preparing to shed jobs after it lost Capacitybuilders contracts to run charity infrastructure programmes. There is also a sense that the passage of the Charities Act ended what might be termed the Etherington era.

He doesn't talk to the media often. "I prefer to give fewer but more in-depth interviews," he says. "If I have something intelligent to say, I'll say it; but I can't see the point of spouting on in order to get column inches." He prefers to communicate through press office statements, which can make him seem a bit bland. Speaking off the cuff, in his Surrey accent, he is more engaging.

Etherington's father was a house painter, and his mother, who is 83, was a cleaner. He grew up in a council house and attended Sondes Place School (now the Priory School) in Dorking, where he batted for the cricket team. He then studied politics at Brunel University.

He began his career, in the words of a friend, as a "beard and sandals" social worker before leaving the public sector to become a researcher at a housing association. He then took charge of a now-defunct government-funded charity called Good Practice in Mental Health. "It wasn't my ambition to work in the voluntary sector," he says. "An interest in mental health led me here."

He has stayed ever since. He became public affairs director at the RNID and, at 35, became its youngest ever chief executive before being headhunted to join the NCVO, which began life as the National Council of Social Services in 1919. "It had lost its way," he says. "It wasn't quite sure what its strategic agenda was supposed to be." The voluntary sector also faced uncertain times. "People weren't so clear about what the agenda was in 1994," he says.

Etherington wanted to make the NCVO the voluntary sector's "principal organisation influencing public policy". He appointed Nicholas Deakin to chair the organisation's independent commission; when it reported in 1996, change was in the air. "Timing is terribly important," he says. "By 1996, everybody knew there would be a new government, so it was possible to play the Deakin agenda into that."

The incoming Labour administration of 1997 acted on many of the commission's recommendations, much to even Etherington's surprise. "I didn't think it would be so successful," he says. He was confident about getting the Compact and what became the Performance Hub, but less sure about reform of Gift Aid and charity law. He remembers urging the then Chancellor Gordon Brown to reduce the threshold at which Gift Aid kicked in from £250 to £100, only to be floored by Brown suggesting they remove it altogether.

Deakin may have been a success, but the changes politicised the sector in a way it is still struggling to come to terms with. Etherington cites increased government interest and scrutiny as the biggest changes of the past 14 years. The NCVO's new focus - some might say obsession - is civil society, which is partly in response to a tighter government embrace at a time when people are less interested in mainstream politics. Etherington says it's about discovering whether disparate organisations such as charities, universities and cooperatives, formed by free association and able to act independently of government, can form 'linkages' that mobilise people in a way the state can't. He says the Carnegie UK Trust's Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in the UK and Ireland, due to report in the autumn, "might be the new Deakin".

For now, there are more mundane concerns. The NCVO's income will shrink to £11m next year because of the loss of business caused by changes to ChangeUp. The organisation had a hand in four of the six old hubs of expertise, but is only involved in three of the nine new national support services. Etherington says it was absurd to review the hubs' performance after only six months. "There was no way they could demonstrate they had been effective in such a short space of time," he says.

The NCVO was represented on the board of Futurebuilders England, which lost the contract to continue to run the Government's £215m Futurebuilders fund, intended to increase the sector's involvement in public service delivery. Etherington attributes the loss to a Government "change in strategy" rather than any failure on the board's part. "Futurebuilders 1 wanted to concentrate on getting organisations up to speed and ready to deliver services," he says. "Futurebuilders 2 is about giving money to organisations that are already ready."

Despite the setbacks, Etherington insists morale at the NCVO is "very high". Colleagues have praised his leadership skills, although some say he isn't easy to get to know. Campbell Robb, who worked at the NCVO from 1998 until he became director general of the Office of the Third Sector in 2006, says: "He's very trusting of people. He gives them room to manoeuvre and space to develop."

Etherington describes his leadership style as "consultative". He says: "I like to engage with people, but the buck stops here." He agrees he can be a bit reserved sometimes: "I don't make small talk that well, unless it's about Surrey or Charlton."

Discussion turns to his long tenure. "It's the 'is he off?' question," he laughs, before replying without hesitation: "I find this a really fascinating organisation and I'm not looking to go anywhere." But isn't 14 years long enough? "No, I don't think it is. Now is a great time. As the polls narrow and the election is only two years away, the opportunities to develop the debate about the role of civil society are that much greater."

He names the Deakin Report and the growth in NCVO membership, which yields £750,000 annually compared with £56,000 when he took over, as his two greatest sources of pride. And his biggest regret? "The increasing competitiveness within the infrastructure of the sector."

He describes chief executives body Acevo's strongly pro-service delivery stance and the Directory of Social Change's much more sceptical one as "quite extreme positions", neither of which he agrees with. "The truth lies somewhere in between and is more subtle and more difficult to sell," he says.

It's pretty clear who he thinks should be leading the selling. "One of the things I learned from Deakin is that a significant institution has to drive a public policy agenda," he says. "Only the NCVO can create a sense of commonality that can build bridges between organisations." For a while longer at least, it seems he will remain the sector's chief salesman to the wider world and the biggest fish in the charity pond.

Etherington CV

2007: Chair, advisory board of GuideStar International
2002: Chair, BBC Appeals Advisory Committee
1997: MA in International Relations and Diplomacy, School of Oriental and African Studies
1995: Trustee, CAF
1994: Trustee, Business in the Community
1994: Chief executive, NCVO
1993: MBA, London Business School
1991: Chief executive, RNID
1987: Director of public affairs, RNID
1984: Director, Good Practices in Mental Health
1982: Policy adviser, British Association of Social Workers
1980: Research officer, Joseph Rowntree Trust/Circle 33 Housing Trust
1979: MA in Social Service Planning, Essex University
1977: Social worker, London Borough of Hillingdon
1977: BSc in Politics, Brunel University

Five things you never knew about Stuart Etherington

1. He travels to work by water. He takes a Thames Clippers passenger boat from Greenwich to Embankment as part of his journey to the NCVO's headquarters in Regent's Wharf, near King's Cross

2. He used to serve in the Territorial Army and still takes pride in his map-reading skills. The military connection remains in paintings of Nelson on his office wall. "I don't think he was a very good strategist, but he was a brave man," he says

3. Italy is his favourite overseas holiday destination, but he also likes the extremes of the British coast and frequently visits Penzance and the Isle of Lewis

4. He used to fly gliders. These days his hobbies include opera, theatre and reading. Dickens is his favourite author. He supports Charlton Athletic FC and Surrey County Cricket Club

5. He is dating charity lawyer Ros McCarthy and says not meeting her sooner is his biggest personal regret. He has two god-daughters, one of whom works in the charity sector.