A former president of the Royal Albert Hall has called for the Charity Commission to take urgent action to tackle a perceived conflict of interest in the charity’s governance arrangements.
In a letter to the regulator, Richard Lyttelton, who resigned as president in 2011, says the charity’s trustees have long resisted reform to address a fundamental conflict of interest in the hall’s governance arrangements and the regulator should intervene.
He says the hall has spent “substantial sums defending members’ claimed entitlement both to govern the hall and to profit from selling tickets on the open market”.
The construction of the historic venue was partly financed by selling 1,276 of its 5,272 seats to private investors in 1866.
It is up to individual seat-holders what they do with tickets for their seats, which includes using them, giving them to friends or charities, returning them to the box office to be sold at face value, or selling them on through potentially lucrative resale websites.
But 19 people on the hall’s 25-strong trustee body, known as its council, are seat-holders and are therefore able to influence the commercial decisions over the events the historic venue holds.
Lyttelton, who is a seat-holder, has long been campaigning for the hall to change its governance arrangements.
He says the commission should use its regulatory powers to consider disqualifying trustees whose personal interests conflict with their fiduciary duties.
He also calls for action against council members who have served more than nine years, the Charity Commission’s recommended maximum term for a trustee.
He says a “proper investigation would reveal that charitable resources have been used to defend private benefit” and says that if that was established, the commission should consider whether it could recover the relevant expenditure from those responsible.
It is understood that the commission is considering its position and will respond in due course.
A spokesperson for the Royal Albert Hall said the charity had not seen the correspondence so could not comment on specific allegations made.
The spokesperson said the organisation took its responsibilities as a charity seriously and trustees were committed to acting in its best interests.
“The hall’s trustees have robust policies and procedures for managing conflicts of interest,” the spokesperson said.
“However, the trustees are currently reviewing the hall’s governance arrangements, including the way in which we manage conflicts of interest.
“This work is considering a range of measures to strengthen the hall’s governance and ensure it continues to serve its charitable purposes.”
The spokesperson added that the hall would “engage constructively with the Charity Commission on any matters it wishes to discuss with us”.
The Charity Commission has spent years trying to persuade the hall to update its governance arrangements after concluding there was a conflict of interest in the way it operates.
In January 2018, the case was referred by Jeremy Wright, the-then Attorney General, to the charity tribunal for a ruling, only for that referral to be withdrawn a month later after the hall threatened to seek a judicial review of the decision.
Earlier this month, Third Sector revealed that a Labour peer had proposed legislation that would force the Royal Albert Hall to amend its governance arrangements.
The private members’ bill would prevent seat-holders from selling tickets for their seat at a higher price than face value.
It would also mandate that charitable venues with seat-holders “may only form a minority of the persons making up the governing body of the event venue”.
The legislation would also ensure the chair of the board can also not be a seat-holder.
But, in commmon with most private members’ bills, the legislation is unlikely to be given sufficient parliamentary time to become law.