RETAIL ENVIRONMENT
When just giving becomes just taking
Charity shops have become a staple of the UK’s High Street as vacant frontages are discounted by landlords to drive faltering footfall, a trend that could accelerate as the retail landscape continues to morph, post-COVID.
With the potential for a new recession, charities could be the beneficiaries of additional sales as people look set to lose their livelihoods after the Government’s Furlough scheme is wound up in the autumn.
Coupled with the drive to cut down on fast fashion as a result of the climate emergency, the charity stores have enjoyed a renaissance in interest from the new working poor to retro-seeking Millennials targeting pre-loved stock.
This stock comes at a premium for the charities whose campaigns depend on donations, but there is a darker side to giving – the act of taking.
Owain Dale-Jones, managing director of Second Eye, a specialist out-sourced profit protection company for the charity sector, said: “There is a perception among a sizable minority of charity staff and volunteers that there is no value to the stock because it has been donated.
“They choose not to understand that there are still rents and salaries to pay as well as the funding of the work of the charity itself, all of which could be losing millions of pounds through theft.
“In the last four years we have completed 137 operations and dismissed 401 members of staff having identified some level of dishonesty in 90 per cent of investigated shops.”
One scam involved purchases not being rung through the till and staff simply pocketing the money.
“There is a twisted logic and sense of entitlement because there are staff and volunteers who are stealing from the charity which is trying to help others and taking advantage of the fact that not-for-profit organisations can ill afford sophisticated CCTV or data mining technology – this means they can steal with impunity.”
Dale-Jones, whose father was a greengrocer, worked for both Harrods and Sainsbury's before entering the private retail security sector with Lodge Services which included time in South Africa before setting up Second Eye.
“On average, the theft ratio is 70 per cent stock and 30 per cent cash. With COVID, we have seen cases of keyholders going into stores while the shops are shut and helping themselves.
“We have also seen a lot of refund activity, but that in itself may not be an indication of theft as they could be genuine returns because people have not been able to try items on.
“The point is with the current pandemic, there are more likely to be fewer stock takes and fewer businesses are currently able to focus on their shrink.”
“Our start point is ensuring procedure manuals are robust followed by audits which check compliance to those procedures - we only use covert cameras when all other avenues have been exhausted.
“There was one case where the store was going to be closed because it was only taking £350 per week. Following our investigation and after the rogue staff and volunteers had been replaced, the store took over £1,000 per week and it continued to do so until COVID struck.
“This kind of theft is often off the radar because if the general public understood the scale of the problem, they would stop donating.
“The police are not interested in prosecuting and charities are forced to get rid of people who steal, so they often simply move to other charities and carry on as before.”
This phenomenon led Dale-Jones to establish the concept of the Commitment Card, a charity employment database which is a voluntary vetting programme. It works by directing staff and volunteers to register for a card by entering their personal details, including employment history and National Insurance number.
The idea is that the staff or volunteers carry the card from job to job, but if they are dismissed, the card is electronically withdrawn, meaning they would have to re-apply for a new card to work, at which point the issue is flagged on the secure and accredited database.
The card, which is applied for online, has also been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to ensure it complies with GDPR.
“It is simply a way of checking that they are who they say they are and an independent reference. Many people we come across airbrush their CVs to remove dismissals or use references from work colleagues who they have colluded with at previous employers,” said Dale-Jones.
For more information visit www.secondeye.co.uk and www.thecommitmentcard.co.uk
