The world of quangos:
- revolving-door public and private senior positions
- elevations to the Lords
- placement MPs - ministerial jobs for MPs that have escalated in recent years, giving those so poorly paid a boost in income
- the industry around enquiries, often described as Britain's fastest growing sector and ‘something we lead the world in’
- the expansion in non jobs, diversity officers and the like which no self respecting outfit dare go without
... are all part of job expansion that produces little but keeps the unemployment figures down, at a financial cost.
All this is still going on: adverts in the press for these jobs in the public sector abound at a time when thousands elsewhere are losing their jobs through no fault of their own other than not being feather-bedded by tax payer money and public sector security.
Yet one sector has been hit by the Corona virus and its effects on the way people live and spend: the charity sector.
The charity sector has for many years now morphed from well-meaning ladies in village halls raising money from coffee mornings and individuals raising money by walking backwards to John o’Groats to raise funds to get treatment for an ailing child for example, into a multinational business intent on separating the individual from his well-earned crust under the guise of charity.
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| More, indeed - but not for the intended recipients |
Very few of us do not give willingly to certain charities that we know about and support their aims, many even of the larger ones still operate as charities should with a basic workforce and the bulk of gifts going to the cause they support.
Sorting the real from the huge financial empires that so many charities have become is ever more fraught. Cynic though I am, I still left some money in my will to a couple of local charities that relied on direct giving to survive and did a great job with people who worked there for the satisfaction of doing a good job for those less fortunate.
But even there you have to keep an eye on the way they develop - one I had bookmarked in my will was a small specialist local hospice that for years did wonders with what it gathered from the public and larger donations from local business and individuals. Until one day I saw that they had amalgamated with a much larger outfit that received lottery money and financial support from the government and local government, and of course with all that, under the umbrella slogan of 'bigger is better and we now have access to more funds and can give a better service', came the inevitable CEO and entourage on salaries the previous incumbents could only dream of. How true the claims of improved service are is open to question as once again the business model puts positions with inflated salaries at the top of the agenda alongside the service provided.
Anytime that happens, I don’t give. So many of the big charities have extended well beyond their remit, and have political overtones. Charities like the RNLI never had trouble raising funds for an outfit that had staff that crewed the boats for free, they always had sufficient reserves for any eventuality, yet even they could not be left alone: an opportunity was seized and the usual cabal of operating officers on big salaries moved into what must have seemed easy pickings, and with them came a political agenda that included teaching people to swim in Bangladesh - you can have an opinion either way on that but there is no way that is what the majority of donors want the RNLI to spend their donations on; but the RNLI took a predictable route in defending the millions now spent this way by inferring that anyone objecting was racist.
That alone would put me off donating but they compounded that by several incidents of applying rules on boat crews and a sacking in one case that were PC directives; this, on people the that crew the boats for free and know what the job is really about, not about the wishes of abacus operatives.
Many other charities have gone down similar routes. The scandal with the Save The Children charity in recent memory should have finished them, yet the size of the operation means they survive virtually unscathed (as have Christian Aid, Oxfam and Red Cross, to name just a few of the big charities that have been involved in scandals against the person in forms of sex abuse and the failure to use raised funds appropriately, either by directing them elsewhere or using them internally.) Despite the gravity of the charges, all they will admit to is a short-term moral blip; but again it did bring to light not just the odious nature of operatives living the good life and exploiting their positions, but also how far down the greasy pole the positions of largesse on public funds and donations have travelled: the number of employees on six figure salaries was staggering. This is still nominally a charity, yet now this one and so many others look like a branch of government, as indeed many now are, with the funding to match.
£20 billion is channelled into charities in this country through funding by government or as I like to call it involuntary taxpayer theft.
The UN itself is a charity sponsored by governments worldwide using taxpayers' money, yet the attitude of the organisation in recent years is one of a self-supporting nation and a bullying one at that. We all provide the income, they tell us how we should live, and again their record in far-off lands does not cover them with glory. I saw for myself the UN in ‘action’ during the Ethiopian famine when spending time in Kenya: for most of the personnel, all well-paid, their time seemed mainly spent drinking and whoring in upmarket hotels. The fleet of aircraft stationed there never appeared to leave the ground - the nice formation on the tarmac stayed that way. They were criticised then and have been ever since for inaction and wasteful practices.
The Save the Children scandal reached the headlines not so much because of the unwanted sexual indiscretions (to put it mildly) of several senior employees but because one in particular was the husband of an MP who was murdered; that part of the story is a separate issue but it did keep the matter in the public eye for a very long time.
The Red Cross has always appeared to be a charity you could trust and yet the scandals worldwide just keep on coming, a conveyor belt of corruption and self aggrandisement:
- the list is endless.
Age Concern boss gets in on the act:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/age-concern-boss-who-scammed-12593302
And do not believe that these now typical activities are reserved for the big boys, far from it: numerous cases of using a charity as a front for personal gain are available to see, since a charity is still a wonderful front for levering cash from well meaning citizens.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/millions-lost-in-charity-scandal-1154831
The first lines in the report are interesting in that only 10p in the pound went to the cancer sufferers. Many of the big charities are guilty of similarly small ratios. Their claim when questioned on this is that it needs an administration to run these charities efficiently and money has to be spent on advertising to get money in; well, at ten pence in the pound it would be better to go back to coffee mornings. The whole industry - and that is what it is - has become an employment vehicle for those who see an opportunity to fleece people.
Even celebrities who lend their public face to the support of charities come up short when they fail to research the charity they are supporting. Being paid (at least in fame and kudos) for the support, their public shaming should be enough to stop them doing it again but I doubt it: that cheque being waved is enough to get them on board. The story of course is that they are doing the charity a favour by discounting or waiving their fee for their appearance or image rights.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8088707/Harry-Redknapp-tricked-accepting-thousands-pounds-promote-fake-charity.html
Some of the advertising does have an amusing side. Water Aid claims that clean water can be given to all of Africa for £3 a month, they have been saying that for decades, they must have collected enough for most Africans to have their own personal well by now but according to them the problem is just as bad as it has ever been. I am aware that part of the problem there is that those with standpipes fail to clean filters, so the tap stops flowing and the well is abandoned - so the answer is more standpipes!
A cuddly toy after a donation from the WWF is guaranteed to save snow leopards: this ad has been also running for years. With the money raised the very small number of snow leopards in the world could all have their own sanctuary by now, so where does all the money go? I think we know the answer.
Linking to big business is a route now favoured by many charities: this gives the businesses the cachet of being a caring one and opens avenues of revenue streams to the charity. As everything in the charity sector it comes with a caveat: Age UK linked with energy company Eon under the charitable act of giving elderly people who signed up cheaper energy - only it transpired that Age UK was getting a £41 kick back from each new customer signed. It doesn’t stop there, though of course all is claimed to be above board, 'nothing to see here', and despite investigations the gravy train rumbles on. Other Age UK scams here:
https://www.theweek.co.uk/69496/age-uk-energy-tariffs-scandal-what-you-need-to-know
The Clinton Foundation requires several books to do it justice but here it will suffice to say the money raised by the foundation and the collaboration with the US government has done nothing for Haiti (the Clintons' beloved honeymoon spot) and everything for US businesses in the construction industry: the only evidence of anything being built is an abandoned port project. The Haitians remain as impoverished as before, in fact worse. A lot of graft has been going on there but this is all now par for the course; nearly all the money given has ended up back in the US.
Here is a different Clinton Foundation wheeze and more graft:
https://www.investors.com/politics/clinton-foundation-scandal/
At a much lower level putting your old clothes in the ‘we collect’ bin at the supermarket may seem a good idea, yet even that small act of charity is fraught with theft and in the case of collections misplaced faith in the charity involved. It was believed by most that the clothes you gave to the Salvation Army would end up being distributed among those needy souls they serve well in other ways, but no more: like nearly all the big charities they collect and sell by weight to a wholesaler who then either sells again for his own profit leaving a small amount for the charity who you believed was making good use of the items. Even with the large number of people all these organisations employ they can’t be bothered to sort and distribute themselves so the biggest take goes to the wholesaler; not exactly what people had in mind when putting their bag out for collections.
Why my sudden interest in the workings of charity workings? Well, I have been aware of the charity scams as many have for years. That will-writing was what originally made me realize how difficult it was to leave money to the right people; but since then more little things emerged: the desire by charities to exploit every area for gain. The linking with business has produced the checkout waiver of any small change, saying 'we will give it to our designated charities' - but not really designated, as they are business partners. Amazon do it online; it is becoming common practice.
The clincher was the other day at M&S. When my wife was paying at the checkout she was asked directly if she wanted to give a pound to Macmillan Nurses, another designated business partner. I always thought 'chugging' was for the charity workers who approached you on the street, now it is cashiers being told (as they must have been) to do the job for them at the checkout. Cold calling, constant badgering letters and emails, and now checkout chugging; enough! I and everyone else should be independent in why and where they give money to charities. This is a step too far in what are already very murky waters.
No wonder charity giving is dropping. Using the pandemic as an excuse, some of them are pleading poverty. In many cases it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people; anything that reduces the gravy train based on the largesse of the uninformed public can’t be bad.
