They set out to create a ‘more equal Greater Manchester’. Then they made half their staff redundant before Christmas
‘You could see where this was going. We didn’t have the control to stop it’
Dear readers — you may have never heard of the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO), but for the last five decades, it has been a crucial prong in Manchester’s economic development.
As well as distributing large sums of public money on behalf of the combined authority, the GMCVO has worked on many of Greater Manchester’s most important public sector projects, like the key homelessness initiative, Housing First, or the back-to-work scheme, Live Well. Only four years ago they launched a huge £8.25 million project to support businesses that tackle inequality across the city. Andy Burnham said it was an example of “how we can make Greater Manchester a better place to live for everyone”. Then, it all came crashing down.
Two weeks ago the organisation summoned half of its staff to a Microsoft Teams meeting with an insolvency practitioner and unceremoniously told them they were being made redundant. The remaining staff were told they were on informal notice for the next two weeks while the organisation wrapped up its activities. The chief executive was nowhere to be seen.
The Mill has been looking into how things went so wrong, so quickly, at GMCVO. We’ve spoken to six former staff members, including the organisation’s former chief executive, Alex Whinnom, who said: “I can’t tell you how angry I am…I’m furious.”
We’ve heard from former staffers who told us glaring financial issues at GMCVO went ignored by higher-ups, and we have learnt that the organisation had budgeted to receive money from the National Lottery that it never ended up applying for. Neither GMCVO, nor its chief executive, John Hannen, have responded to the Mill’s requests for comment.
That’s the topic of today’s story. As ever on a Friday, it’s paywalled halfway down. That’s because we can only do this kind of journalism thanks to our 3,200 paying members. If you value a local media that scrutinises companies and institutions across the region, rather than churning out press releases on their behalf, consider signing up today.
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🚌 BBC Manchester reports that 200 public transport workers employed by Transport for Greater Manchester will strike between 12-15 December and 20-23 December over “the fall of the value of their wages in real terms” since the cost-of-living crisis started. A detail in a Unison press release that strangely went unreported by the BBC was that the strikes are also expected to take place during the first two weeks of January, including the 5th — the day that TfGM is expected to launch the final phase of rolling out fully-franchised bus services in Greater Manchester. Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and other parts of Manchester and Salford will join the Bee Network on this day, but will the celebrations be scuppered by striking transport workers angry about their latest “inadequate” pay offer? Get in touch if you know more.
🎓 MMU raised eyebrows recently when it gave its art and design building a new name: the Lowry building. The building opened in 2013 and was first named in honour of Alan Benzie, the former chair of the board of governors, but was renamed “to pay tribute to our illustrious alumni and renamed it the Lowry building in honour of our former student and famous Mancunian artist, L.S. Lowry.” Speaking to The Mill, Mary Heaney, the director of services at MMU between 2006 and 2014, described the move as “practical”, given the need for universities to market themselves towards the international student market, but also “ruthless”. “It risks severely damaging [Alan Benzie's] reputation,” she said. “In the 200-year history of the institution no building has ever been renamed this way.” “It lacked a perspective of the implied loss of stature of Alan Benzie in some way,” said another former staff member who was displeased with the decision. Benzie himself didn’t respond to our requests for comment, but a spokesperson for MMU said: “We immensely value the distinguished leadership afforded to the University by Alan Benzie during his tenure as chair of the board of governors. Alan Benzie helped to lay the foundations of success for what the University has subsequently gone on to achieve and we are forever grateful for the instrumental role he played. The recognition of these successes resulted in naming our Manchester Art School building the Benzie building during its first 10 years of life.” Know more about this story? Get in touch with Mollie.
🌲 We attended what must be the cutest Christmas event of the season at Manchester Museum on Wednesday night: the end-of-year concert of Olympias Music Foundation, one of our favourite Mancunian charities. Dozens of tiny children played their violins, cellos, flutes and bassoons at the bottom of the stairs in the museum’s Living Worlds gallery, many of whom have only started learning the instruments recently. Olympias offers free music lessons to children aged six to 16 who qualify for free school meals, and they also run choirs for children and adults. When Mollie wrote about the charity last year, lots of Millers donated and got involved with Olympias, and at one of our members’ events this year, founder Dr Jo Yee Cheung stood up and thanked the room for their support. “We’ve felt such incredible warmth from your readers, and they’ve supported us in such tangible ways,” Jo wrote to us recently, and we’d love for that to continue. Olympias has just opened its annual appeal and it needs thousands more pounds in donations in order to take on the children on its waiting list for music lessons. We’ve just made our donation and you can make yours by clicking here.
They set out to create a ‘more equal Greater Manchester’. Then they made half their staff redundant before Christmas
By Mollie Simpson
On Friday 22 November, an email dropped into the inboxes of staff at the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO). It was from the board of trustees and said “something incredibly vague about GMCVO’s future and you’ll hear from us next week”, according to a former junior staff member. They recall not taking it too seriously, having had no reason to be concerned about the survival of the organisation that employed them.
After all, GMCVO’s history conferred an impression of reassuring stability. Its CEO, John Hannen, had been employed in the organisation in various roles for 25 years; the tenure of its previous chief executive, Alex Whinnom, was nearly two decades long. In 2025, the organisation would celebrate its 50th birthday party.
While many may not recognise its name, the role that GMCVO quietly plays in Manchester’s economic developments should not be understated. As well as distributing large pots of public money on behalf of the government and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), it has worked on the GMCA’s key homelessness initiative, Housing First and the combined authority’s holistic back-to-work scheme, Live Well. “Name a topic and we worked on it,” says one former employee.
Only two years ago it launched an £8.25 million project to support businesses that tackle inequality across the city, which Burnham called an example of “how we can make Greater Manchester a better place to live for everyone”. Two weeks ago, Manchester City Council leader Bev Craig appeared at GMCVO’s Social Enterprise Summit (Andy Burnham was set to attend, but pulled out last minute). A few days after that event, the forboding email was sent.
While some former staff members at GMCVO dismissed the email out of hand, others say this was the moment they realised the tidal wave was finally, inevitably, about to crash over them. One describes feeling like they were “on tenterhooks”, waiting for the next update. Another describes the email as “badly done”, painfully drawing out the company’s spectacular collapse.
Ten days later, 15 staff were made redundant on a Microsoft Teams call with a consultant from the management consultancy firm Columba and the insolvency practitioner Emma Mifsud, who clinically told them that the company was entering administration. “You have been made redundant, as of right now,” she said.
The company’s CEO, John Hannen, was nowhere to be seen. Hannen hasn’t answered The Mill’s LinkedIn request and WhatsApp messages either, nor has GMCVO responded to our requests for comments. At the top of the organisation, there has been silence.
GMCVO’s shocked former staff have been much more forthcoming. “As an organisation whose primary focus is social and economic inclusion, to have that treatment, it felt like a betrayal,” a staff member says, referring to the fact that the call was handled by a third-party insolvency consultant. “I felt like I was not of value to them.”
“How has this happened?” says another. “We’ve gone from having a really good level of reserves, to having no money, no money to pay staff. We’ve literally fallen off a cliff.”
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