Association of NHS Charities

Stephen King

Head of Finance

The Royal Free Charity

Stephen worked for Moorfields’ Special Trustees in the 1990s, as NHS charities became more independent of their associated hospitals. In 1999 he moved to the Royal London Hospital Special Trustees, which served a far larger hospital, and so had much more diverse grants, investments, and special purpose funds. However, it soon merged with its Barts counterpart, to form Barts and the London Charity. Subsequently, he successfully faced major opportunities and challenges in cash management, brought several East London health charities under the main charity umbrella, and, as at Moorfields, greatly reduced the number of special purpose funds.

In 2007, Stephen joined the Royal Free Charity, and initiated a fundamental overhaul of all aspects of financial governance. Besides making the Charity and the Hospital more visibly separate, a notable aspect of this process was a massive, painstaking audit of every special purpose fund, in which every fundholder was interviewed by one of the Charity’s staff. Besides raising awareness both of the Charity, and of its workings, it has so far led to 40% fewer funds, and further reductions will follow.

Stephen is a trustee of the Southend Boys Choir and Southend Girls Choir Trust, and has put the charity on a sound financial footing after its devolution from Southend Borough Council.

Stephen welcomes the opportunity to offer his accumulated NHS charity finance experience and skills to the Council, to complement the trusteeship, administrative, and fundraising skills it already has.