Wellbeing Alliance

The Wellbeing Alliance, ‘a team of social entrepreneurs who live in Scotland and work throughout the UK.’

The Wellbeing Alliance is a Not For Profit company registered at Companies House (No. SC 435567 – date of incorporation 26 October 2012).

It is based at 11-12 Newton Terrace, Glasgow – the same address as lobbying firm Quorate Public Affairs.

According to its website the alliance is ‘ a team of social entrepreneurs who live in Scotland and work throughout the UK.’ The website does not, however, disclose the name of anyone that works for it and its ‘Chief Executive’ Jacquie Forde is joined as a director of the company by her husband Jeremy Forde and one of her daughters Nicola Forde.^[1]

Aims

The stated aim of The Wellbeing Alliance is:

...to play a key role in contributing towards an improved level of health and wellbeing for Scotland and the UK population. We will achieve this through delivering a range of projects and campaigns with our partners. We also aim to help improve the healthy life expectancy of our citizens, which could make a significant contribution to the national economy.^[2]

Work

The Wellbeing Alliance carries out work in the following areas:

Policy and Research
Project Development
Programme and Organisational Development

Commercial and Third Sector projects, programmes and campaigns are the primary means by which the organisation is funded.^[2]

Call for probe into health forum link to Big Pharma

On 2nd March 2014 the Sunday Herald reported that Holyrood's Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee had been asked to probe two Cross-Party Groups (Cross-Party Group on Health Inequalities & Cross-Party Group on Chronic Pain) administered by Jacquie Forde of the Wellbeing Alliance because of her links to the pharmaceutical industry. Forde's other firm, Quorate Public Affairs, has the same Glasgow address and was created in the same month as the Wellbeing Alliance. The Sunday Herald reports:

Forde is listed as secretary and treasurer of the CPG on health inequalities and secretary of the chronic pain group.

She is also the sole shareholder of the Wellbeing Alliance, a not-for-profit social enterprise set up in October 2012 which lists its address as Newton Terrace in Glasgow.

Its website describes it as a team, of "public health trained social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference".

Forde's other firm, Quorate Public Affairs, has the same Glasgow address and was created in the same month as the Alliance.

Until recently, Forde's social media profile said of Quorate: "We provide high quality public relations and political lobbying services and our team have decades of experience working in and around the disciplines of Pharma, NHS, Media, Politics and Charities."^[3]

The Cross Party Group in Health Inequalities discloses the following in its most recent report:

Voluntary Secretarial Support from Jacquie Forde of The Wellbeing Alliance

Period: September 2011 to March 2013

32 days

Value of this support - My time is voluntary as an individual

Refreshments £401.50 provided by the Health Inequalities Alliance

£141.95 provided by the Wellbeing Alliance^[4]

In its March 2013 report, the Cross Party Group on Chronic Pain stated that 'Jacqueline Forde of the Health Inequalities Alliance' was elected unopposed as secretary on May 23 2012.^[5] In its subsequent report in June 2013 it notes that:

Secretariat support supplied on a voluntary basis by Jacquie Forde.^[6]

The Wellbeing Alliance provided the following resources to the Cross Party Group on Chronic Pain:

January 23rd 2013 meeting refreshments were sponsored by the Wellbeing Alliance (£32.40)
March 13th 2013 meeting refreshments were sponsored by the Wellbeing Alliance (£64.40)
May 29th 2013 meeting refreshments were sponsored by the Wellbeing Alliance (£64.40)^[7]

A Parliament spokesman said: "Cross-party groups must comply with the Code of Conduct and declare who provides its secretarial support. Where that support is provided by a consultancy or public affairs firm, the SPPA Committee has the power to require the organisation to disclose its full client list."^[8]