Funny but no-one seems to have mentioned it much of late. Not even Dave. Can’t think why

looks like its going really well

But then what did we expect. Great article on the man who’s brilliant idea it was

blue sky bonkersness

The headquarters is just up the road from me

I doubt even CFH will be along to defend this one

Dave’s mad mate, Steve Hilton.

Just one question about that original guardian article, why are charities being funded through tax? surely the whole point of charities is that they are voluntary. Just that my limited experience of working with charities is that they frequently a have a few “old school tie” types as directors who usually do alight out of being so, funding them through tax just seems possibly to be more jobs for the boys.

Not a supporter of of call me daves big society BS, but I do think a chunk of the charity sector is a piss take, and the devil of these closures would be in the detail not the headlines.

MSP- cos they have taken on government contracts on occasion or are providing services to councils and other public bodies.

Sometimes its grants

MSP – are you a real person?

they are charities in that they are “not for profit” organisations that also meet the requirements of Charities Commission. Charity doesnt mean popular donation funded.

Theyre useful in a number of places as they are generally run by people more sympathetic to the demands of the service users they tend to. They can also be a bit shit and get too big so becoming the disconnected corporate that they were often created to replace…q.v. ALzheimers Society.

What TJ said. Charities basically take on the running of services that the council would have to provide otherwise.

They receive some council funding for this, but this usually comes nowhere near to the actual cost of providing the service. Donations and voluntary work make up the shortfall.

Now the government want these organisations to continue to provide this service, just without the funding

It actually has to rate as the single biggest act of fraudulent cynicism this country has ever seen IMHO

Just one question about that original guardian article, why are charities being funded through tax? surely the whole point of charities is that they are voluntary.

Point of charities is just that they aren’t profit making and their purpose is charitable – ie. to do something good. Some use volunteers, some don’t. In many cases it is cheaper for charities to hire and pay people to provide services that they provide than to manage volunteers doing the same job, so a lot of charity work does not involve volunteers (or only involves volunteers in a fundraising capacity to support the work done by paid staff).

Joe

whoa, slow down. Don’t write it off just yet.
I knew I’d seen something in the paper recently about this. Um, let me see, oh yes…
here we go.

No idea what it’s about though, can’t be arsed reading it, got enough worries of my own.

I doubt even CFH will be along to defend this one

To be fair I have never known CFH to defend anything.

i work for a charity technically
-in cancer research, funding comes from various sources, majority from the government and research councils -which are variously funded by government and charity donations,
direct charity funding doesnt account for much and ever since the financial collapse public and more importantly for us corporate donations have dissapeared,
coupled with the current governments attack on higher education = lay offs left right and centre at the moment

its hard to quantify the detrimental effects it will have 10/20 years down the line when the cancer drugs we are potentially developing now arent there

it probably easier to observe the effects of cutbacks on harities providing social care, housing, rehab, education, abuse support etc etc etc etc
i really do wonder how dave does sleep at night

i really do wonder how dave does sleep at night

On reading that article, that’s exactly what i was thinking Kimbers

kimbers – Ive aways wondered, why isnt there an international centralised funding and research structure to areas like disease research (as opposed to care etc).

Doesnt all these little national post make the research programme inefficient and possibly duplicates effort?

No idea what it’s about though, can’t be arsed reading it, got enough worries of my own.

I think the idea behind the Big Society Bank is that it will be able to provide loans to charities, which must come as a huge relief to charities which have had their funding slashed.

In Croydon charities have had their funding slashed by 66% :

Charities react in horror at Croydon’s plan for 66% grant cuts

I’m sure they well be eternally grateful to the Tories that they can now borrow their way out of trouble. Big Debt provides all the answers to the Big Society.

stoner yep it does make no sense
some big research councils like the welcome trust are uk/usa split and international collaborations are very common, but large scale, big money, joint ventures are few and far between the only recent example i can think of was the genome project- and that has had an enormous effect on our understanding of biology

Britain is a world leader in scientific research. With just one per cent of the world’s population, it accounts for eight per cent of scientific journal articles, and 14 per cent of high-impact citations (a measure of how influential the research is). And it is already doing this with “less” in one sense; the UK spends 0.55 per cent of GDP on research and development, compared to Germany’s 0.71 per cent, France’s 0.81 per cent and the USA’s 0.77 per cent

the problem is that science spending is seen as a low priority
we go a very long way with very little really; competition for grants is incredibly fierce, and we punch well above our weight i think politicians just dont give a crap about science funding, personally i think its because they all did degrees in how to become a politicians and are too stupid to look at anything else

btw we spend 0.55% of GDP on science yet spend 2.7% of gdp on the military

only the teensiest bit disingenuous there Ernie 😉

Not denying that lack of income is a big problem for charities and pulling of funding is not going to help… BUT the Cuddly Bank is supposed to loan capital for investment, not to cover running costs. Charities find it very difficult to raise large chunks for investment in infrastructure/assets etc.

Still, it isnt going to fix much.

Speaking of failing (failed?) government polices… remember at the budget little George announced a National Insurance holiday for new SMEs? It was throwing a bone to the country outside the south east and something they could tag to the whole rebalancing the economy thing. Well, it turns out that:

The policy was supposed to provide a £940m boost for small companies in the regions and lead to the creation of 800,000 new jobs. Instead it looks set to cost more in administration and red tape than it has provided in support for new businesses.

Figures unearthed by Labour today suggest that so far just 5,137 companies have benefited, with the potential for just over 10,000 new jobs.

With an average benefit of £2,000 per business, the party calculates, that suggests only £10.3m has been paid out to firms – less than the £12m the scheme costs to administer.

ft.com

kimbers – how much do defence industires spend on science? 😉

Stoner – Member
kimbers – Ive aways wondered, why isnt there an international centralised funding and research structure to areas like disease research (as opposed to care etc).

It is because when research is done by a university the institution gets to own the IPR, and can potentially make money off it. Too much collaboration and you dilute potential profits.

so do charities fund IP protected university resasearch? I cant see Marie Curie trust giving Loughborough eggheads £50k to look at a small gene component and then let Loughborough milk the findings for all theyre worth?

Stoner – Member
so do charities fund IP protected university resasearch? I cant see Marie Curie trust giving Loughborough eggheads £50k to look at a small gene component and then let Loughborough milk the findings for all theyre worth?

Dunno – it likely varies project to project. I do know £50k won’t get you much research done, though.

the Cuddly Bank is supposed to loan capital for investment, not to cover running costs.

Yes I realise that. And I also realise that it won’t be much use to charities which can’t cover their running costs. What point did you think I was making then ?

I’m sure they well be eternally grateful to the Tories that they can now borrow their way out of trouble.

Here I rather assumed you were implying that debt was a solution to “trouble”.

The loans to be made available arent anything to do with “trouble” but to help charities invest in fixed assets. A new source of capital is not the same subject as the loss of a source of income.

I’d bet some serious money that if you asked in 12 months how much the BS Bank (how aptly named) has lent, the answer would come back as **** all.

How many charities are going to be ‘investing’ if they can’t even begin to cover their running costs?

More cynical Tory fig-leaf tokenism

Here I rather assumed you were implying that debt was a solution to “trouble”.

Yeah I’m sorry if I didn’t put across better. But no, I didn’t think that charities could pop down to the BS bank for a bit of cash to pay the week’s wages.

As Binners says : “How many charities are going to be ‘investing’ if they can’t even begin to cover their running costs?”

Most of the Croydon charities which depended on LA funding will probably close.

The BS is going to become a big problem for call me Dave. It’s complete bo*llocks and even the most die hard neo cons would probably agree with that.

If he sticks with it at the next election he will get ripped to shreds if he bins it he will look like a nob.

I look forward to seeing how he plays this one out.

As Binners says : “How many charities are going to be ‘investing’ if they can’t even begin to cover their running costs?”

probably only those big enough to absorb other similar charities (and whatever income they attract) and try to leverage off some kind of scale.

There’s probably a few others that can lower their total running costs (even after including additional interest payments) by owning some key assets instead of hiring/renting/outsourcing.

probably only those big enough to absorb other similar charities

You appear to believe that much of the work charities, which have been hammered, have been doing, will be done by others. I’m not sure what you base that on. I would have thought much more likely is that it won’t be done at all. Why does Croydon need a rape crises centre anyway ? Or the work will be taken over by government departments, the NHS, LAs, etc. Exposing even more the failings of the government’s strategies.