I thought I'd lost my touch in spotting fakecharities, not having identified one since 1 May, but I scented blood in Monday's Metro. See if you can spot the tell-tale signs in this:
One in four pupils is being failed by their secondary school, a report says... "Every child should thrive at school but, as this research shows, parents recognise that is not happening," said Andy Powell of independent education foundation Edge, which wrote the report. "The education system has changed and some schools are doing great things – but it hasn't changed fast enough."
He called on the government to move away from the one-size-fits-all system to one which gives youngsters "the chance to develop their own talents through real world experience"... Signs that children are not happy include late nights out and constantly visiting social networking sites, Edge added.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said exam performances had improved in the past 12 years. But the ministry accepted "there was more to do".
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I filed it under 'stuff I ought to research a bit more when I have time', but there was a full page advert in today's Metro, featuring an image worthy of William Wilberforce (click to enlarge):
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Having done my leafletting for the evening, I had a look at their website, the whole layout of which screams "fakecharity", but in case of doubt, look at their Partners:
The National Education Business Partnership Network
Association of Colleges
Association of Learning Providers
Department for Children, Schools and Families
Education Development International
Business In The Community
Edexcel
Learning & Skills Council
Qualifications & Curriculum Authority
Federation of Awarding Bodies
I appreciate good spin as much as the next man, but why are their frauds so pathetic? If you have a quick look at the website of each of their "partners" you'll notice that they all follow the same tedious fakecharity template. Are they all designed by the same geeks or something?
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Typical, you wait ages for a new FakeCharity...
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11 comments:
"Having done my leafleting for the evening"
Keep up the good work!
I had this one on my list to look into after a few of those adverts popped up - I wasn't exactly sure what "independent foundation" meant... Their partners, however, are utterly predictable.
"Independent foundation" is a meaningless phrase which quangos and fakecharities use to describe themselves. It's less than meaningless, it's a downright LIE in this case, actually.
'Signs that children are not happy include late nights out and constantly visiting social networking sites'So that's why kids stay up late and go on Facebook - and here's me thinking it's because they like going out and chatting to their mates.
By their definition, are there any happy teenagers in Britain at all?
McH, you've spotted one of the giveaways, there are a few more to go...
Any charity where their online jobs section is bigger or more prominent than the section asking for donations is overwhelmingly likely to be a fakecharity.
Apologies for obtuseness - still a newbie at this game - but doesn't the notion of universality (in this case of misery) undermine their argument of relative disadvantage?
Or is the essence of fake charities a circular logic of dogma that defies rational explanation?
BTW, is there a basic primer out there for those of us struggling to re-invent the wheel?
McH, this is more accurately described as a FakePressureGroup.
When the govt wants to adopt a new policy or ram through an existing one, it has to make it look as if there is widespread support for it. Clearly, their education policies have been a miserable failure, so they need a cover story why they are changing tack to what is basically the grammar/secondary modern concept.
Dry-rot Moran exploits an old dodge which makes it harder to nail a thing as a fake charity.
1) Register the company as a not-for-profit, limited by guarantee entity at Companies House. This gives you a great deal of flexibility as you only have to tick some vague boxes describing the business. All you have to do is nominate a director and a company secretary, and the legal filing requirements are minimal.
Provided you don't go over about £50k in any year, it doesn't seem to attract much attention from HMRC.
2) If the firm also sets up a registered charity, it would mean more onerous reporting and accountability - so don't do that unless you have specific tax advice to do so. You can charge the tax advice to your not-for-profit company, or maybe put it (like your solicitor's bills) through the Fees Office.
3) Use your job, paid for out of the public purse, to lobby for more money or projects for your little pet company, which is now effectively a cash-quango.
4) Use the money you get to lobby for more money for your quango and to make sure you get all the PR benefit for having 'secured these benefits'. Commission your associates to do consultancy for your pet quango.
Example: Lobby for Christmas lights. Secure contract for Christmas lights from council and be paid by the taxpayer for errecting them. Commission a friend put up the Christmas lights. Attend as guest of hour at the switch-on and get name in paper for having 'secured funding for the Christmas lights'.
Repeat (3) and (4) until short listed as Woman of the Year in Public Life.
In looking at who funded Dry-rot's not-for-profit company (Equality Networks Limited), the FT uncovered a £20k bung from another quango, EEDA (East of England Developement Agency).
They had had given EQN £20k to do a feasibility study on a wimmins business centre and whether such a thing would be beneficial.
The study was then lodged with a third quango, the Bedford and Luton Economic Development Partnership (www.bledp.co.uk).
This is the contents list of the BLEDP research library. We can only pray they haven't spent £20k a pop on every file in every category, but the signs are not good.
We need a damn good bonfire of the quangos, fake charities etc.
WOAR, excellent summary, I didn't 'do' eQN yesterday (having read all about it in the FT) because I thought everybody else would.
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