Abortion charity chief’s ‘obscene’ £434,500 pay package was approved by porn company boss whose own social enterprise received money
- Simon Cooke accepted £505,000 worth of products from porn boss last year
- Philip Harvey donated family-planning products to Ethiopia from his charity
- Adam & Eve exec was paid £921k to give contraception to Congo Republic by Cooke
- Charity experts say ‘it is clearly time for a governance review’ after these links
By Jake Ryan For The Mail On Sunday
Published: 18:01 EDT, 7 September 2019 | Updated: 22:01 EDT, 7 September 2019
A charity chief’s controversial £434,500 pay package was approved by the boss of a porn company whose own social enterprise received money from the organisation.
Chief executive Simon Cooke’s salary and bonus at Marie Stopes International (MSI) have made him the UK’s third-highest paid charity boss. But the Charity Commission has now asked the organisation, which received £62 million of taxpayer funding last year, why it agreed the deal.
Mr Cooke’s salary rose from £173,067 to £217,250 last year and he was awarded a performance-related bonus of the same amount, taking his total pay to £434,500.
The increase was agreed by US businessman Philip Harvey, who chairs MSI’s remuneration committee.
The 81-year-old is also president of Adam & Eve, an adult entertainment company, and chairman of DKT International, a birth control charity that has received hundreds of thousands of pounds from MSI, including a contract worth £921,000 last year to provide contraception to women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Chief Executive of Marie Stopes International Simon Cooke (pictured right) saw his pay rise to £434,500 approved by a Philip Harvey, the president of Adam & Eve porn company who received funding from his organisation
MSI also accepted £505,000 worth of family-planning products from Mr Harvey’s charity in Ethiopia last year, while DKT’s subsidiary Woman Care supplied contraceptive implants worth £162,000 to MSI in Madagascar.
Charity experts said Mr Harvey should have removed himself from discussions about Mr Cooke’s pay.
‘Marie Stopes is a great charity and its actions and behaviour must be seen to be beyond reproach,’ said Sir Stephen Bubb, acting director of the Oxford Institute of Charity. ‘Clearly it is time for a governance review there.’
Critics attacked the reproductive and sexual healthcare charity, which is part-funded by the taxpayer, for the huge pay packet, which came after 1,100 jobs were cut at the organisation in the same period. A clinic in Leeds is pictured above [File photo]
MSI offers contraception and abortions to women in 37 countries and runs 60 UK abortion clinics.
Mr Cooke was recruited from Supermax, a razor-blade company based in Dubai, in 2013 and the charity’s income rose to a record £296.8 million last year. The average salary for a head of Britain’s 100 biggest charities is £178,000.
MSI said no public funds were used in its chief executive’s pay packet, adding: ‘As two of the largest family planning providers worldwide, it is in no way unusual for MSI to partner with DKT where the work demands it. To suggest this funding was somehow linked to any individual’s remuneration is not just wrong but a total misunderstanding of how charities operate.’
The Charity Commission said: ‘Our guidance makes clear that even the perception that there is a conflict of interest can damage a charity. Trustees should consider whether the best thing is to remove a conflict of interest.’
The Department for International Development, which gave £62.3 million to MSI last year, said: ‘Our funding supports MRI’s work in the poorest parts of the world. Our priority is to drive value for British taxpayers’ money and DFID awards contracts on that basis.’
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