RNIB and Action for Blind People set to merge

By Sunil Peck

RNIB's planned takeover of the charity Action for Blind People will be good news for blind people, both charities have claimed.

The legal details of the agreement are yet to be agreed, but both charities are hopeful that the agreement will come into effect in April, 2009.

RNIB’s chief executive, Lesley-Anne Alexander, told Disability Now that Action would become a subsidiary of RNIB.

She said there were a huge number of charities that provide similar services to visually-impaired people, which was leading to unnecessary competition and duplication in the sector.

She said: "We won't both have to compete for contracts for employment or eye clinic liaison which means that resources that we would have expended on tendering, competing and branding can be spent on delivering services."

She said RNIB had been in negotiations with Action about improving the quality of services for visually-impaired people for "many months". But she said the current credit crisis had had no influence on the decision.

Action’s chief executive, Stephen Remington, said the agreement would be "fantastic news for visually-impaired people".

He also denied that the move had been hastened by the looming recession.

He said: "This is not a cost-cutting exercise. We are two successful organisations joining forces in a structure which is going to make sense."

He said that Action already works with other organisations to provide services to visually-impaired people, and the agreement with RNIB was a natural progression.

The announcement follows the merger of the library services of the RNIB and the National Library for the Blind last year.
27 October, 2008