Accounts Information

 

This short report was put together by a qualified accountant and metal detectorist and has been included on this web site exactly as it was presented to the four regions. It can be accepted or disregarded but at least you have the facts as they were perceived by a well qualified individual and everyone is entitled to an opinion. 

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The NCMD claim, in the “News” section” on their website, that published accounts for the year from 1/4/2020 to 31/3/2021 were placed on the “Publications” section on 26th July 2021. This is only partially true. They were very selective in what they decided to publish. They were happy to publish the Income & Expenditure Account for the period, which shows that NCMD made a nice profit of £45,667 during that time. They were also happy to publish their Treasurer’s Report, which is so long, boring and irrelevant that many NCMD members will not bother to read it. They were, however, reluctant to publish the Balance Sheet. 

 

That balance sheet showed that NCMD had around £340,000 in bank accounts but had no plans to spend it in any way that could benefit the hobby or the members!

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They were also reluctant to publish the Auditor’s Report in which the auditor, a long-established firm of Scottish Chartered Accountants, stated that they were unable to verify any of the information in the accounts! The NCMD paid them £4,836 for doing this. In 2019-2020 the same accountants did exactly the same but then charged £2,132!

The actual membership number is not made available. The Accounts show that the Insurance Premium for 2020-2021, covering the NCMD members amounted to only £14,112, which using a figure of approximately 20,000 members (this could be higher but not considerably lower) works out at less that £0.70p per member. This is a tiny percentage of the annual subs that NCMD members have to pay and begs the question “what is happening to the rest of all the members’ subs?”. The short answer is “not very much”.

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In the past, NCMD Officers (I remember Trevor Austin?) carried out their many duties voluntarily!

 

In February 2021, the NCMD Officers promised to commission a financial audit that would “highlight if, and where, our organisation has gone wrong and highlight the path forward which will include periodic financial assistance”.

 

This never happened! The NCMD merely reappointed the same Scottish Accountants that they used in the previous year, who had done nothing except send out a hefty invoice. The NCMD accounts for the last 6 years have been examined. None of these have been professionally audited, examined or checked and it is clear from these examinations that the bookkeeping throughout this entire period had been sloppy and inaccurate.

 

The last paragraph of the 2020-2021 Treasurer’s Report is somewhat alarming. The Treasurer writes that “Commencing Financial Year end 2022, all regions will be required to provide their regional accounts, including bank statements, receipts and invoices to the Executive Treasurer (her new title) because at present she is having to sign off the NCMD Accounts without checking the origin of much of its income.”

 

This demonstrates the financial incompetence of the present regime. A cheque and a list of members is all that the regions need to send to NCMD.

 

The NCMD finances paint a worrying picture. They have vast amounts of cash but very little accounting skills and would rather pay themselves generous salaries than spend anything on promoting and protecting the hobby, which the Constitution obliges them to do.

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Click HERE to view the details of proposed spending as itemised so far in the AGM held on 27th June 2021.

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