Ever expanding government in action (2)

From The Metro:

Violent men will be banned from their own homes to give abused partners "breathing space" under new police powers promised by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

Domestic Violence Protection Orders, to be trialled in two areas, will apply for up to a fortnight in a bid to prevent women having to flee to emergency accommodation such as refuges. Instead they would be offered help and advice by caseworkers on the options open to them if they left the relationship - including securing a longer-term injunction...

OK, yet another gimmick from the government that dreamed up ASBO's and ABC's, so it will either never be implemented; or it will be implemented so badly that it just makes things worse etc. etc. (He knows where you live!). Moving swiftly on ...

... charity Refuge warned that the so-called "go" orders would only be effective if they were backed with sufficient funding and training of professionals...

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, said: "These new orders will protect women from further risk of domestic violence if they are implemented effectively. We hope the Government will underpin these positive initiatives with the funding and training needed to ensure this and, in doing so, alter radically the number of women whose lives are blighted by domestic violence."

The money shot!

Refuge's 2008 accounts show that total income of £8,215,265 includes £2,431,979 "rent" which is presumably a cross charge (the charity has no signifcant property assets on its balance sheet, heck knows to whom they pay it out again. Housing associations, themselves fakecharities, perhaps?).

Out of the remaining £5,783,286; "voluntary income" was £1,128,459 (their donors include the usual suspects like Children in Need and Comic Relief, Note 3); grants for "Supporting people" or "Floating Support" was £3,541,362 (all from the local authority/borough, Note 4); "Grants for services" was £784,010 (all from other government departments or local councils, Note 5); and interest income and "other income" (unspecified) was £329,455.

So that puts Refuge squarely in the "fakecharity" corner. But they'd like a bit more cash and more power anyway, thank you very much.

FakeCharity Of The Day

From The Metro:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was left ashen-faced at the launch of the Government's domestic violence campaign when she was accused of using "gimmicks" and "spin". Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, stunned ministers and police at the round-table discussion in central London with a verbal assault on the Government's record...

OK, Refuge, registered charity number 277424, let's have a quick glance through their 2008 accounts ...

Page 4: "Refuge works in parternship with a number of different housing associations and local authorities ..."

Page 9: "After close to three years of developing a relationship with New Philanthropy Capital (NCP)*, Refuge is delighted to announce that it been selected as one of their charities of support... Of particular note is the funding we received from the Home Office... Refuge has also been fortunate enough to continue to receive support from a number of other trust and statutory funders, some of whom include ... London Councils... We are also very grateful to the Home Office and Comic Relief for their continued support...

Page 10: "Specific high level aims for 2008/9 include... Establishing an Eastern European community outreach project in four London Boroughs funded by the Big Lottery."

Page 11: "Grant income was up 32.7% to £784,010 due to additional funding to develop our advocacy services in Kent, Richmond, Lambeth and Lewisham."

Page 19/Note 5 confirms that all grant income was from local councils, Home Office, Ministry of Justice etc.

Page 14: Income from "Supporting People": £2,920,627.

Page 19/Note 4: "The Supporting People (SP) grant is awarded by contact to Refuge as the Service PRovider by the Administering Authority (Local Authority/Borough) with approval of the Commission Body (a partnership of local housing, social care, health and probation statutory services). The SP grant is restricted for Refuge provision of support services as broadly defined by the DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government]"

* The NCP are a new one on me, and I specialise in this crap. They appear to have 'only' received £63,000 from the Big Lottery Fund (page 22 of their 2007 accounts), as well as "£183,175 from Friends of New Philanthropy Capital, Inc." (page 12), which appears to be a US-based fakecharity.

I've got to stop digging now, this is getting too gruesome.