The Cardiff-based charity is the subject of internal audit investigation by the Welsh Government, which is the main funder of the charity, and is also being scrutinised by the Charity Commission. But the Commission has noted that it is not a formal investigation.
A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said: “We have received concerns about the charity. These concerns are linked to the loss of charity funds and whether conflicts of interest were properly managed when making decisions for the charity.
“We have examined the accounts and are in contact with the charity to discuss these matters. We are also in contact with the Welsh Government, as the charity’s main funder. Please note that we are not formally investigating the charity.”
A Welsh Government spokeswoman confirmed that an investigation is underway. She said: “There is an internal audit investigation progressing at present and it would therefore be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time. We await the findings of the investigation which is expected to conclude early this year.”
Cylch
Cylch was founded by Mal Williams in 1997 and has 60 social enterprise members which carry out activities that range from kerbside recycling collections to furniture repair and sale. It also has around 40 ‘associate’ members such as local authorities.
The disclosure of the Welsh Assembly Government and Charity Commission involvement comes just days after Mr Williams stepped down from his role as chief executive of Cylch on December 31 2012. He has been replaced by Richard Thomas as acting chief executive. Mr Thomas is the reuse coordinator for Cylch and was previously a sustainability coordinator for Bangor University.
Mr Thomas said: “The investigations are not concluded involving the Welsh Government and Charity Commission. Until that process is concluded there is no further detail. We are hoping it will be concluded very soon. There are two investigations going on.”
Mr Williams explained to letsrecycle.com that his resignation was because he was now 67, “which is two years past retirement age”, and that he had been intending to retire for four of five years.
He added thathe would remain a director of Cylch to provide support for the organisation until the speculation is satisfactory resolved.
Explaining how the investigation came about, he said: “There are some concerns as I was a director of lots of companies we have been helping. We made a £5m investment in a plastics bottle recycling plant – Plastics Sorting Ltd, it was 60% owned by a social enterprise, the Cleanstream Group, something we set up as our development arm.
“We were acting in good faith and doing everything by the book”
Mal Williams, director at Cylch
Some people with an agenda saw that as being dodgy in the wake of concerns about the way that charities operate in Wales so we are now the subject of scrutiny. We are waiting for it to be over – as far as I am concerned we were acting in good faith and doing everything by the book.
Approach
Cleanstream is a collection approach which Mr Williams has pioneered with Cylch and links in to the current challenge by a group of companies to the governments interpretation of the revised Waste Framework Directive and commingled collection of materials.
In 2000 Mr Williams explained that Cylch has registered the term CLEANSTREAM with the Patent Office to describe:-the method of collection, handling, sorting and reprocessing that separation at source requires and that Cylch advocates.
In the past Mr Williams has spoken of his hope of Cleanstream ruling in Wales and highlighted as what he perceived as the benefits of the approach, particularly in terms of helping to create employment opportunities.
Grants
Plastics Sorting Ltd was the recipient of two grants, totalling 1.3 million from the Welsh Assembly Government to help develop the facility on a 91,500 sq ft site at Blackwood Business Park in Blackwood (see letsrecycle.com story).
The development of the plant was heavily supported by Mr Williams, who became chair of Plastics Sorting Ltd. In 2012 Plastics Sorting Ltd was one of the seven claimants in the Judicial Review over the government’s interpretation of a clause in the revised Waste Framework Directive concerning whether separation collection allowed for material to be collected commingled.
Ahead of the launch of the plant in April 2010, Mr Williams described the success in developing the plant as the culmination of a dream held for over twenty years to start closing the recycling loop in Wales.
Cylch was funded to the tune of £300,000 by the Welsh Government in 2012/13 and Mr Williams explained that the organisation would not be appointing a new permanent chief executive until future funding was confirmed.
Mr Williams said that following his departure as chief executive, he would now be spending more time working in areas such as zero waste and in promoting quality recycling, through his role as the chair of the Campaign for Real Recycling.
- The buyers of the Plastics Sorting Ltd plant, Viridis Recycling, this week said they were restructuring the company (see letsrecycle.com story).
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