I’m very proud of Lifeline, proud of our staff and volunteers, proud of what we stand for. And because of this pride, most years, I’m quite happy in my regular piece for the Annual Review, to describe some of the things that Lifeline does and why we do them in the way we do. This year’s a bit different though.

For a number of reasons, it has become important to try and think beyond the immediate future. We tend to bury ourselves in the present and thinking about the future is something that many organisations, including Lifeline, often find difficult. At Lifeline, therefore, we are looking to develop a longer term strategy. What can I say about this process? Where do I start? I think the best place to start is with the work of our projects.

Like many organisations in our field, when you go and visit any of Lifeline’s projects and talk to our service users, our volunteers and our workers, you can’t help but be impressed by their skill and passion and by their commitment to their work. This year, more than any other year I can recall, members of our Board of Trustees have been out and about meeting Lifeline staff and volunteers, talking to service users, asking questions and being asked questions too.

I’ve listened to these questions, (they’ve been put to me as well), and they’ve had a big impact on the way I’ve come to think about Lifeline’s future. During these visits, two basically similar questions have been asked again and again.

1. What is Lifeline for?

2. Who owns Lifeline?

Answer these two questions, and I believe we’ve cracked it!

Question 1: What is Lifeline for? 

To answer this question, we should look first to our Purpose.

Lifeline’s Purpose is “To relieve poverty, sickness and distress among those persons affected

by addiction to drugs of any kind and to educate the public on matters relating to substance use.”

We’ve worked hard to reconnect our staff and volunteers with our Purpose over the past two years and most of them are very glad that our Purpose has a certain social awareness. The Health Development Agency (as was), stated in evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee in 2001 that: “Over 70% of what determines a people’s health lies outside the domain of health services and in their demographic, social, economic and environmental conditions”.

Lifeline’s longer term strategy will have that understanding at its core. That is to say drug addiction, or, if you prefer, ‘problem drug use’, is not, at bottom, just a health issue; our purpose reflects that and we’re glad it does. Lifeline is not just a Health Care System. In the words of one set of commentators, “Health care systems want to grow. They are naturally expansionist and create vested interests intent on survival and growth.” *

Clearly that won’t do for Lifeline. But how do we stop it happening? For instance, how do we prevent our organisation pouring too many of its resources into highly paid executive positions – my own included! Anybody will tell you, once you’ve gone down that road, it takes a lot of reversing out.

Our Purpose clearly identifies the Ends of Lifeline as an organisation. It isn’t talking about the means. Relieving Poverty and Sickness and Distress are our Ends. You might want to call them our Global Ends.

But who identifies whether our Ends (What Good for Which People at What Cost!) are described in such a way that our progress toward meeting them can be properly measured?

When we wish to measure the impact of all our work: the outcomes, if you will, or, in plainer language the results (all the positive changes we make in people’s lives) – who decides whether in achieving these results, we are as productive as we might be.

In short, how do we know that Lifeline is making a worthwhile social impact?

What if we could achieve twice as much for the same money!

And when it comes to our Purpose (and the Ends our Purpose contains), who is responsible, or, better still, ‘Accountable’ for ensuring that we pursue our Purpose and Ends using ethical and prudent means? Of course the Chief Executive bears a heavy responsibility – the amount I’m paid so I should. But am I, as Chief Executive, finally accountable?

What if Lifeline wanted to embark upon a searching exploration of its purpose? Who would lead that search?

Although Lifeline’s Purpose has served the organisation for the past thirty five years, does this mean we can never change it? Does it mean we can’t even question it? Can we not change or modify our Ends? Who decides that?

Over the longer term who ultimately decides Lifeline’s Ends?

To come back to the question as we first put it: ‘Who will decide what Lifeline is for?’

And if we do decide to change our Purpose who’s going to tell the Owners?

We are going to tell them, aren’t we?

This brings me on to my second question:

Question 2: Who owns Lifeline? 

Like many charities that have company status, Lifeline is a company limited by guarantee. We are not a for-profit body. Ultimately we are a company whose sovereign body is our Membership. We gather our Membership together once a year at our Annual General Meeting. One of their main responsibilities is to elect the Board of Trustees. In a purely legal sense they can be regarded as a non-profit equivalent of shareholders. They certainly have a voting power, but they are not ‘Owners’ in the same way that shareholders of profit making equity businesses are ‘Owners’.

When it comes to talking about who owns Lifeline, it is important to separate out narrow, legal definitions from the more fundamental moral and social question of ownership.

Some people might say that the real owners of non profit organisations like Lifeline are its ‘Stakeholders’. We have quite a few stakeholders. They include, in no particular order, our funders, (like the government), our commissioners, (like Drug Action Teams), our staff, (they’re important stakeholders too), the public (who certainly have a stake in seeing us achieve our ends as effectively and economically as possible), the other agencies with whom we work in partnership, our suppliers, (including those who provide us with consultancy). This is by no means a complete list.

A stakeholder analysis is a useful exercise, but it won’t necessarily tell us who owns Lifeline in that moral sense referred to above. If we want to discover who owns Lifeline in that sense, we have to go beyond those people we dodeals with and ask who are those people that we have no moral right not to recognise? Unless we can answer this question, how do we avoid getting lost in a confusing array of stakeholders?

Our Purpose clearly identifies the Global Owners of Lifeline – they are none other than our Beneficiaries “…those persons affected by addiction to drugs of any kind”.

Shall we treat our Beneficiaries as if they are a homogenous group or, as seems more sensible, shall we try to identify the different drug using populations that make up our Global Ownership? And if we do so identify them, shouldn’t we also identify those key areas of identifiable need in so far as we think it is our responsibility to set those priorities and to pursue them in an effective, ethical and prudent manner? Or maybe we should just leave it to the government. Maybe we just accept that the only drug users that really interest us are Prolific, Persistent Offenders and our interest in them only really comes down to how successful we are in getting them to commit fewer crimes.

Charities like Lifeline are big businesses in their own right. And like all big businesses we are interested in making friends and influencing people. More specifically, we recognise that one of the best ways of getting things done is to work closely with those individuals and agency partners outside our organisation. Partners that we identify as being key in helping us to pursue our ends. It’s often called ‘Networking’. Indeed, networking brings together teams of individuals from many backgrounds, specialisms and organisations to pursue fresh thinking. In this sense, we want our boundaries to be fluid and adaptable. At the same time as being fluid and flexible, however, Lifeline is a business. It’s also an institution. It has a history and traditions, (radical traditions, if that’s not too much of a contradiction). And as one of the largest charities in the Drugs Treatment Field it has clear responsibilities.

Lifeline’s major responsibility is to our beneficiaries; they are our real owners. It is for them that we are working and it is around their needs that our longer term plans must be constructed. It is for them our Purpose should be shaped and it is for them, and only for them, that they can be modified.

Of course, these are only my views, but the questions that inspired them, questions about our purpose and about who we ultimately work for should be at the absolute heart of all our thinking about the future. They are the questions that have been asked repeatedly over the past period.

I believe that our answers to these two questions, and all the other questions that flow from them, will determine Lifeline’s future and Lifeline’s future success. The more people, stakeholders, staff and volunteers and beneficiaries (particularly our beneficiaries), can give voice to their fundamental beliefs and values and the more their questions can be framed and heard, the stronger Lifeline will be.

Ian Wardle ,
Chief Executive

* Lewis, S, Saulnier, M, and Renaud, M 2000: Reconfiguring health policy: simple truths, complex solutions.