A former staff member at the Universities of Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) has apologised for the part she played in an ‘unhealthy and damaging’ UCCF culture, saying she has kept quiet for 20 years out of fear.
Nay Dawson worked for UCCF for 18 years, becoming a team leader in 2006. Writing in Premier Christianity, she reflected: ‘The urgency of our mission and the significance of our role led to an arrogance in my heart. I’d lost my humility… So when I started to notice that things weren’t quite right, I was in so deep. I felt I couldn’t – and so didn’t – ask questions.’
She added the organisation’s desire for excellence and its reputation took over how we treated others.
Referring to how staff were threatened with disciplinary or dismissal, Dawson said: ‘We ruined good people. They were humiliated and shoved out the back door … HR procedures were flirted with just enough to look genuine, but we abused the very practices that were meant to help staff.’
Last year Dawson contacted all the staff she had worked with to apologise to them, a process that ‘terrified me’.
National Director Richard Cunningham and Field Director Tim Rudge have returned to work after their suspension in December 2022. Following an internal investigation, investigator Hilary Winstone KC upheld several allegations of employment law breaches and found staff had previously felt unable to speak out about concerns. Her report remains unpublished.
On 1 February, the Trust board reiterated an earlier apology saying they – and the directors and line managers – ‘are genuinely sorry’ for how contracts had been handled and the hurt caused.
Meanwhile, a further trustee, Raymond Brown, resigned in January – the seventh since September 2023. Two new trustees Gareth Burns and Mark Childs have recently been appointed.
