Griffin has spoken

As part of the BNP’s rolling programme of administrative improvements designed to ensure that we are able to cope with our current rapid and expected further growth, we are pleased to announce that we have marked the start of the new financial year by moving from having an overworked Treasurer and Deputy Treasurer to creating a full Treasury Department.
This new department now employs professionally trained accounting staff as well as the key party officials who have done such sterling work by themselves up until now.
The BNP’s central accounting unit’s draft accounts for 2008 show a leap in our national operational income to well over £1 million last year. This year we are on course to do even better.

With the regional, branch and group turn-over on top of that, the whole operation is now far too big for the able but limited capacity staff who have so far shouldered the increasing burden. Our independent external auditors, in particular, have been pressing hard for action to deal with this situation, and this has now been done as follows:

The new Treasury Department comprises four full-time staff:

- A Chartered Accountant (ACCA qualified) with 25 years experience as a Senior Partner who will be responsible for implementing continuous management of financial systems and budgets and also undertaking independent checks in conjunction with an Auditor on the organisations financial position and providing financial advice;

- A fully qualified Accounts Technician (IATI qualified and also holding a BA (Hons) degree in Business Administration), with 10 years experience as an Assistant Accountant who will be responsible for taking accounts to trial balance stage, reconciling all bank accounts, VAT returns, responsibility for Sales / Purchase ledger and assisting with month end and year end procedures;

- Jennie Noble, outgoing National Treasurer, who will switch duties to take on running the Trafalgar Club. This will be undergoing a major revamp and expansion later this year in order to raise its profile as the flagship of the Party. Jennie will assist in handling vital core administrative jobs, particularly checking that all donations are legal under the very strict terms of the party political funding laws.

- David Hannam, who will continue to run the accounts of units in those regions not yet handling their own financial affairs.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Jennie Noble for her efforts over the last year to bring the party’s central treasury operation to the stage where it can be handed over to the professional administrators. While previous treasurers have done the best they could and have always ensured financial probity, Jennie’s extensive financial experience in pension fund management enabled her to bring us to this point, and we owe her a big debt of gratitude.
In keeping with best practice, the expanded Department staff will be answerable to a National Treasurer who is not paid for that role.

This oversight responsibility, which includes the job of providing reports to the Advisory Council and the Annual Conference, and the handling of all disbursements, will be dealt with by BNP Deputy Leader Simon Darby, who will be stepping down as West Midlands Regional Organiser with effect from 5th June.

We wish all the new team the best of luck in their roles.

While we are announcing administrative changes, please note that Nick Griffin has stepped down as Acting North West Regional Organiser with immediate effect. The newly appointed North West Regional Organiser is Clive Jefferson, who has made his mark organising in Cumbria and is widely and justly respected as a dynamic and efficient ‘big hitter’.
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/04/bnp-expansion-programme-%E2%80%94-now-it%E2%80%99s-the-turn-of-treasury/

New National Dispatch and Logistics Manager – and BNP Treasurer
June 14, 2008 by BNP News

After months of growth and part way into a major restocking, it has become clear that the Excalibur and Great White Records merchandising operations (now under the same roof), together with the huge mail outs of BNP bulletins and publications, has become such an undertaking that a full-time National Dispatch and Logistics Manager is needed at our Deeside industrial unit.

Having been responsible for setting up the whole operation there in the first place, John Walker is the natural choice for this job, and we are pleased to announce that he has agreed to take on the challenge with immediate effect.

John took over the job of National Treasurer in very difficult circumstances more than four years ago. When he agreed to take on that very demanding, and often thankless role, he did so on the basis that he only wanted to do it until someone better qualified became available, or for two years at the most.

To have stayed there more than four years, handling the party’s national finances during election years for the Westminster and European Parliaments, and for the devolved Assembly governments of Scotland, Wales and London, through four Red-White-and-Blue Festivals and four full Electoral Commission audits, has been a truly tremendous service to the British National Party. We will always be in John Walkers’ debt.

That said, his previous 25 years experience in administration and logistics in the RAF Civil Service make him particularly well suited to meet the challenges of the hands-on job of managing and co-ordinating our expanding central dispatch operations. We wish him all the very best in his new full-time role, and with the hard work with which he is now also busy as the first elected BNP councillor in Wales.

John’s place as National Treasurer has been filled by Jenny Noble. As Solihull Organiser between 2004 and 2007, Jenny played a key role in the election of our first councillor in the area, and in a variety of very effective political and community campaigns. She has also done a great deal of good work and become very popular as Secretary of the Trafalgar Club, a voluntary job she will now share with a fresh face. Her commercial experience as a senior manager in a pension fund administration role also makes her an ideal candidate for the treasury role.

Having recently moved to Wales, Jenny now has the time to devote to building on the progress made by John Walker in creating systems for, and improving the operation of our National Treasury department.

Among her early targets is the creation of a full advance annual budget based on all the statistics collected over previous years, and the implementation of the even tighter checks and balances on expenditure needed to see the party through the tough economic conditions now hitting the country as a whole. In addition, Jenny also has as one of her early important tasks the further dividing of responsibilities and workload for this important and complex department.

We welcome her to her new role and wish her the very best of luck.

Dave Hannam will remain as head of Regional Treasury where, having completed both the regional and national audits, he is now concentrating on creating an innovative system whereby local fund-holders can access their BNP account statements online, and whenever they wish, instead of waiting for them to arrive by post.

With other advances also in the pipeline right across the board, it is safe to say that dispatch and treasury - two of the most important cogs in the BNP machine - are in good hands.

http://bnp.org.uk/2008/06/new-national-dispatch-and-logistics-manager-%E2%80%93-and-for-bnp-treasury/