Wednesday 19 January 2011

FakeCharity Of The Day

From the BBC:

More babies are at risk of being born into poverty because of tax and benefit changes in the UK, a charity says.

A report by Family Action warns that new parents and babies will bear the brunt of cuts to benefits and tax credit support to families....


We can download their accounts from the Charities Commission website. Their total income is £23,111,000, and page 16 tells us that £18,847,000 of this is 'statutory funding' (there's a list of all the local councils and other government bodies who pay for their services on page 25).

FakeCharities disappeared from the radar screen shortly before the General Election, but it seems that they are now going back to their old ways. Presumably the Lib-Cons have now got their own placemen in, er, place and so they are saying things that the government wants to hear again.

You can tell that the government co-ordinates all this, because the BBC are using the old FakeCharity article template, which always conclude, as this one does, with something along the lines of this: "A spokesman for the Treasury said: "The government is committed to reducing the deficit in a fair way that still supports the most vulnerable in society; reforming the welfare system to put it on a sustainable long-term footing whilst preserving key benefits for vulnerable people."

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bankers : Coutts

Financial Advisers : Coutts

Yup, obviously a charity !

Lola said...

Well, the bleedin' obvious is that you coud shut them down and save 18m taxpayer smackers to be spent on babies and parents. Or not. You could just cut taxes.

Tossers

Scott Wright said...

Correct me if i'm being stupid but if you weren't entitled to something prior to having children & then become entitled as a result, how in the hell are they bearing the brunt of cuts to something they did not previously receive?

Bill Quango MP said...

EMA - 50 million.

So shut two charities and keep the EMA. If EMA is so very necessary for poorhardworkingfamilies as is being touted today, then 'Family Action' should realise that their own sacrifice is for the greater good.

Actually, isn't this a way of stopping the endless calls for more funding? A bit Maggie T, but...?

Anyone organisation that calls for more money for project 'X' takes the first 20% asked for from its own budget.

Imagine the deafening silence.

James Higham said...

Good series, Mark. They aren't always immediately apparent. Mostly they are.

Anonymous said...

Why are charities exempt from the FOI Act?

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, of that £18 million most of it will be payments for subcontracted stuff, with a fair bit left over for 'campaigning'.

SW, don't ask me.

BQ, how about taking the first 100%, keep the maths simple?

JH, this one was a dead giveaway.

Anon, I didn't know they were, but their accounts (usually) provide detail enough.

Bayard said...

Mark, if you delve deeper, you will find that £17M of that £18M is "Staff costs" of which under a million is "Agency costs". So they are all on nice fat salaries, with the head honcho earning "between £100k and £110k in the year".

All for doing either what a properly-run LA Social Services Dept should be doing anyway or what doesn't need to be done at all (see "Our Achievements"!).

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, yes, this 'charity' is in fact a department of the local council.