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The voice of Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector

Published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.

Calls for Pride boss to resign

This news post is over 5 years old
 

​Petition follows criticism of the event

A petition calling on the chief executive of Glasgow Pride to resign has attracted nearly 1,500 signatures.

It comes after organisers apologised for over-selling tickets to last week’s festival.

At least 600 people with tickets weren’t able to get in to the event held in Kelvingroive Park though many say the figure was much higher.

In a statement released on 18 July, the board of trustees of the charity which hosts the event apologised “wholeheartedly” for the debacle blaming problems on cash flow.

The board said: “Part of the reasoning behind the issue with overselling was we had moved to a different ticketing system the week before the event which allowed us to withdraw funds the same day, to assist with cash flow.

"As a charity putting on a major event with big-name acts, cash flow is a constant challenge as it is for most Pride organisations."

However, the petition started by Matthew Smith calls on chief executive Alastair Smith to stand down as “the buck stops with the boss.”

It adds: “Greedy organisers of this event saw fit to keep on selling tickets for this event without taking any notice of the legal capacity of which they would have been fully briefed on when seeking a license for the event.

“This led to thousands of people being stranded outside of the event hot, dehydrated and royally let down by the organisers.”

It has also been revealed Glasgow Pride is late with its accounts by 18 days.

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) posted on its website that the charity failed to provide information on its finances within nine months of its financial year end date.

A charity has 75 days to produce accounts before it is classed as classed as "defaulting."

An OSCR spokesman said: “Pride Glasgow, like every registered charity in Scotland, must submit information to us on an annual basis. The deadline for this information is nine months after their financial year end.

“If a charity’s information is not sent to us within 75 days of its deadline date the charity will be shown as ‘defaulting’ on the Scottish Charity Register.

“Without this information we may conclude that a charity is not carrying out activities to advance its charitable purposes, is not providing public benefit and therefore does not meet the charity test.

“However, when a charity is late we do communicate with them directly and offer support where we can. This provides an additional opportunity for the charity to supply the information.”

A spokesperson for Pride Glasgow said: "In terms of our Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) return, with our event changing date it has impacted on our return, which we knew in advance.

"We have a 75 day window to submit it and OSCR are aware of this.

"As previously stated in our Facebook post we are looking to expand our organisation. We are therefore immediately putting in place a team of external advisors to get us through this period."