I don't think CS is a staff member. He's a medical adviser and possibly a board member.
Edit:
https://www.meassociation.org.uk/about-the-mea/patrons-trustees/
Dr Charles Shepherd is listed as 'Hon. medical adviser', and a member of the board of trustees.
Hon means honorary which means unpaid, as far as I know. Though I assume he gets things like travel expenses.
Prior to 2003, Dr Shepherd was paid a salary in the role of Medical Adviser to the MEA. This was in the Val Hockey era.
He was sacked from this position, in 2003, for whistle blowing. A number of Trustees had resigned from the Board. Several key senior personnel resigned. Val Hockey, CEO, took a redundancy package, herself, not that long afterwards.
The charity was left with very few staff, very little money in the bank and faced an uncertain future. There was talk, at one point, of the offer of a takeover by AfME, or of folding the organization due to the lack of funds.
A new Board was formed from new blood plus the few remaining Trustees. Dr Shepherd, who had said he would not stand for election to the Board of Trustees, did put himself forward for election and has remained a Trustee ever since.
Since Val Hockey left the organization, there has never been another CEO or similar senior management position created; the MEA is now run by a very small number of staff and the Board of Trustees.
Trustees cannot also be paid a salary but they can claim expenses.
If the MEA could afford to pay for a Medical Adviser position, which, looking at the Annual Report & Accounts, I doubt it can, Dr Shepherd could not remain a member of the Board
and draw a salary or receive consultation fees.
Edited to add:
Trustees Report and Accounts December 2017
http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends79/0000801279_AC_20171231_E_C.pdf
This includes financial statements for Year End 2017 and information on staff positions and contract workers.
From 2003:
https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/bitter-row-engulfs-association/article/621203
Bitter row engulfs ME Association
25 June 2003 by ANNIE KELLY
The ME Association, the UK's oldest charity for the chronic fatigue illness, could face closure as it struggles to cope with a bitter feud between its new chief executive and its former chief medical adviser.
The board of trustees is meeting this week to debate the charity's future after a string of resignations, the threat of an employment tribunal, strong public criticism and accusations of serious financial mismanagement.
"We are facing a shortfall in funding this year and unless the minimum required amount of £150,000 can be raised by 14 July, the organisation will face the real possibility of closure," said Val Hockey, chief executive at the ME Association.
She said that the financial crisis had been made worse by Dr Charles Shepherd, the charity's ex-medical adviser, who was sacked after he refused to retract statements that he posted on ME internet message boards in May about the resignation of three trustees.
"I think it's reasonable to say that if the organisation was unable to continue, it will never be clear how much Shepherd's internet postings and the subsequent fall-out was instrumental in this happening," said Hockey.
Shepherd, one of the UK's most respected voices on ME, claims the trustees resigned over a serious "wastage of money" and the decision to move the charity's headquarters and hire new staff.
The doctor has advised the organisation on medical matters for 15 years.
He began posting his concerns about the charity's financial situation on the message board after the number of trustees slipped to four.
"It was the public interest that over-ruled my contracted rules on confidentiality," said Shepherd. "My initial posts were accurate and relevant queries about the constitutional make-up of the charity board and were in the interests of the membership and the public at large.
"I am speaking to my lawyers about whether to take this to an employment tribunal."
After Shepherd was dismissed, he continued posting messages criticising management. He also challenged Hockey to disclose what would happen to £50,000 held in the Ramsay research fund, set up specifically to fund medical research, if the charity was to fold.
Following the charity's failure to respond, Shepherd contacted the Charity Commission with his concerns. Louie Ramsay, the charity's patron, has since resigned and demanded that the charity remove her family name from the fund.
However, Hockey is adamant that the charity is working in its members' best interests. She said that the unrest stems from a "painful but necessary" process of modernisation last year.
"I'm dedicated to what has been started and want to see it finished," she said.
----------------------------------------
https://www.bmj.com/content/326/7401/1232.4
Head of ME association is sacked*
The medical director of Britain's largest charity for people with chronic fatigue syndrome has been sacked after he claimed that the organisation has lost its direction and wasted its money.
Dr Charles Shepherd, for years the leading medical spokesman for British people with the condition, which is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), had his contract with the ME Association abruptly terminated for breach of confidence and making statements “likely to bring the MEA into disrepute.”
In letters to several websites run by various ME groups and patients, Dr Shepherd said that the association was running out of money and expressed concern that funds earmarked for research in a special account might be used for other purposes. He also said that the resignation of three etc.
*We added an incorrect title to this “news roundup” article by Owen Dyer (7 June, p 1232). As the first sentence of the article makes clear, it was the medical director (Dr Charles Shepherd) who was sacked from his position at the ME Association (a British charity for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis). Dr Shepherd was not the head of the association.
