The development charity Tearfund has announced it is stepping back from using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in settlements with staff. It will no longer initiate discussions about NDAs, and staff who signed NDAs in the past are no longer bound by them. Tearfund confirmed that it is not completely ruling out future use of confidentiality clauses, but will only consider them at the request of an employee, in line with recommendations by the development charity umbrella body Bond,.
The charity has always said that it had used NDAs “very rarely” and had never used a confidentiality clause to cover up wrongdoing and to prevent individuals from raising concerns with relevant regulatory bodies. Analysis of Tearfund’s recent annual accounts showed that it spent over £400,000 on severance packages since 2017, although Tearfund said that NDAs were not used in all these cases.
