Member

With my own eyes, I have seen this very thing play out in a completely different context: that of a once-successful national charity whose volunteer membership delivers valued services in their local areas based on the county structure. For many years, the county bodies enjoyed a degree of operational autonomy as well as support from leading members of the community while remaining, of course, accountable to the centre. But following a review, the governance and finances of the charity were centralised, thereby relieving the counties of much of their autonomy and sense of ownership, all in the name of efficiency. The inevitable happened. The volunteers rapidly felt disempowered, poorly understood and poorly supported, and recruitment plummeted. A belated attempt by the centre to put the policy into reverse a few years later has as yet failed to undo the damage caused.