Turning Point developed out of The Camberwell Alcohol Project in South East London and was founded by Barry Richards, a London businessman, in 1964. The charity was described as "one of
Princess Diana's favourite charities"; she acted as its
patron from 1985 to 1997. In 2001,
Lord Victor Adebowale became Chief Executive, remaining until 2020 when he left to take up a new position as permanent Chair of the
NHS Confederation.
Controversies In 2012, the charity unsuccessfully challenged
Norfolk County Council in a
public procurement case at the
High Court. In the course of a
tender exercise, Turning Point had requested some additional staff
TUPE information which the Council never provided. Turning Point submitted a tender for service provision with a caveat that it would need to reconsider costs if it turned out that the charity incurred any
redundancy costs once the full TUPE position became clear. The Council rejected their tender as not compliant with the rules set out in the tender documents, which excluded caveats to proposals and variant bids. Turning Point issued legal proceedings, but the High Court ruled their claim was time-barred: they should have claimed before the date when they submitted their tender, knowing that information the charity considered necessary to submit a compliant tender had not been provided. The case confirmed that it is legitimate and fair to include a requirement in a tender barring caveats and qualified bids. In 2015 the charity denied accusations of "
black on black racism" in its appeal against the decision of an earlier
employment tribunal that Adebowale had unfairly dismissed the charity's IT director, Ibukun Adebayo. but ruled that this did not justify Adebowale's actions. Adebayo's lawyers said that the actions were unfair because the deputy chief executive's behaviour "was more serious than the claimant's by way of his seniority and position as sponsor of Turning Point's equal opportunities policy." == Rightsteps and livelife ==