Leading Animal Charity Pays Out Thousands and is Accused of Acting ‘Above the Requirements of the Law’

One of the UK’s leading animal charities, the PDSA, has settled a claim out of court for nearly £100,000 having been accused of treating its emloyees ‘worse than animals’.

It is being reported that the charity, one of the largest in the UK, settled a tribunal case out of court rather than face accusations of mismanagement.

The PDSA is one of the 50 richest charities, of any kind, in the United Kingdom and depends on donations and fundraising efforts from members of the public.

The charity withdrew from contesting a case of unfair dismissal brought by one its vets working at the organisation’s flagship PetAid hospital.

Katie Goldie had been battling the charity for 15 months after she was suspended from her job along with four other veterinary staff employed by the PDSA.

One national newspaper has reported that other disgruntled former PDSA staff around the country have been bound by compromise agreements. Last year the charity had to defend itself against claims of bullying and infighting as MPs asked for an enquiry into the organisation.

The Times newspaper claims the PDSA tried to ’silence’ their reporting of staff content at the charity by threatening legal action against the paper and MPs have again rushed in to criticise the PDSA.

Anne McGuire, a Labour MP for Stirling is quoted,“If I was a trustee of the PDSA I would now be asking questions as to why long-standing, loyal employees have found themselves in this position and why the PDSA as a result are having to pay out significant sums of money.”

The case of Katie Goldie was based on the fact that she was suspended and later sacked by the PDSA for alleged gross misconduct although she claims she was never aware of what she had done wrong after what was described as ‘a petty incident at the clinic involving a receptionist and a mobile phone’. Three other PDSA clinical staff were suspended in the same incident.

Two of the suspended staff agreed to compromise deals and received an undeclared sum of compensation from the charity and in January of this year, a third suspended employee settled out of court just moments before an employment tribunal was due to commence.

The Times reports an estimate of £200,000 would have been paid to settle with these disgruntled employees, a sum, as they rightly point out, could have been used to treat a considerable number of animals. Had all the cases actually gone to court, the figure would be higher than £350,000 in costs.

The charity has rigidly refused to accept that that have made use of compromise agreements to silence dissent in the ranks and says that settling out of court made more financial commonsense.

Katie Goldie’s lawyer a leading employment specialist, is quoted:

“The whole process was characterised by unfairness and unreasonableness. I would say that the PDSA behaved like an employer who considered itself to be above the requirements of the law and acting in a completely unreasonable manner throughout.”

The PDSA is widely accepted to have funds of around £100million. Earlier in the year the charity announced that its director general and five principal veterinary surgeons are to leave the organisation.

They accepted that they had settled with Mrs Goldie but did not acknowledge any liability for either Mrs Goldie’s complaint or any mismanagement of other staff.

“PDSA is committed to best practice, both in its standards of employee relations and in its veterinary care for pet patients. We regularly review our policies and practices in these areas. Indeed, one employment tribunal chairman praised PDSA in June last year for having ‘gone the extra mile’ to observe best practice. Why would PDSA choose to act differently in any other situation?

“Furthermore, we have had no problem recruiting new staff either from within or outside the charity. Nor has there been an adverse impact on the provision of our charitable services, indeed our PetAid hospital in Glasgow last year provided more than 60,000 free treatments to sick and injured pets.

The PetAid animal hospital manager, Sandra Donnelly left the organisation at the end of last year.

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