For hearts that bleat solely for themselves at this time…
Wonderful.
Best ignore the adverts urging you to donate to charities for the homeless, the mentally ill and the drug addicted. Take a plate of minced pies out to the streets instead, it will do more good.
The ‘former chief executive’, Mike Potts, of just such a charity, ‘People Can’, has been left ‘shocked’, shocked I tell you, by the news that the local council will NOT be taking over the essential services that he should have been providing to 452 ‘profoundly vulnerable people’ this Christmas time. Victims of rape, child abuse, serious domestic violence, and self harm.
Why won’t the charity be providing these services to such ‘profoundly vulnerable people’ this Christmas?
That is because charity begins at home – and ‘People Can’ has gone bust providing excellent pensions to its (currently) 300 employees and former employees. They were offered the opportunity to take a cut in their pensions and continue to provide help to those ‘profoundly vulnerable people’.
Potts said his charity was stable financially and winning new contracts. But after a write-down in the value of its assets, it found itself with a £17m pension liability. It presented a solution to the Pensions Trust, which operated its pension scheme, that it said would have allowed it to meet its obligations while continuing as a going concern, but this was rejected, pushing it into administration.
Stephen Nichols, chief executive of the Pensions Trust, said the rescue proposal was flawed. The trust considered People Can to be unviable, and he said it had a duty to protect the interests of its other members.
Never let it be said that charity has a duty to protect the interests of those it seeks donations for…
December 24, 2012 at 12:59
-
In my younger days, it was very rare to find charities which actually
employed people, most charities relied on volunteers. The few that did employ
staff never paid them particularly well as charitable work was considered a
calling rather than employment.
Now charity seems to be a business
“competing for local government contracts” and employing large numbers of
staff. Surely this is not charity, this is business and should be run as a
business and not have the advantages over any business operating in the same
field.
Having read how major charities like the RSPCA spend their money on
highly paid staff and publicity seeking prosecutions, I give any charitable
donations that I can afford to local charities run mainly by volunteers where
I can actually see where the money is going.
- December 23,
2012 at 12:26
-
Anna,
You write “People Can’ has gone bust providing excellent pensions to its
(currently) 300 employees and former employees. They were offered the
opportunity to take a cut in their pensions “. I’m afraid I can’t find any
article where a pension cut is mentioned.
-
December 23, 2012 at 11:20
-
I’m afraid that with most charities now don’t give a damn about the people
they are supposed to protect. There only concern seems to be “What’s in it for
me?”.
“Pull the gangplank in Jack, I’m on board!”
I’m a pensioner, living alone with no family or friends to speak of. For
the last 16 years I have spent Christmas alone, listening to the parties and
rave-ups of my neighbours on either side. To me this is the most miserable
time of my life.
The local Age Concern have a Christmas Dinner for a limited number of old
people every Christmas day, but I have never yet managed to get on the
list.
It seems that all the so-called charities for the elderly just don’t want
to know these days. Despite the adverts on TV and radio asking people to find
out if there are old people living alone near them and to check up on them
over the Christmas period, nobody bothers. Perhaps they think that Social
Services or other people will. How mistaken they are!
- December 23, 2012 at 12:20
-
A sad story. When I have said similar to people they have advised me to
get out of the house and volunteer!!!
I have said it before and I will say it again. There was a change to the
character of many people in the UK once Thatcher got in. A grasping,
grabbing, sod everyone else attitude.
- December
23, 2012 at 14:32
-
Andy and Anna – People have said the same to me, “get out and
volunteer”, but they don’t realise that when you are 75, suffering with
athritis and practically housebound, what use are you helping people
possibly younger than yourself?
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that most charities are big
business, concerned only with making maximum profits for the owners and
shareholders. They seem to go out of their way to talk you out of any help
you might ask for. Even the Social Services seem to operate along those
lines!
- December 23, 2012 at 15:42
-
Just as there was when Blair got in. A nasty, self-entitled, rights
over responsibilities attitude.
-
December 23, 2012 at 18:52
-
Well, that did not take too long-It wuz all Margaret Thatchers
fault-the default position of socialists for all ills. I remember the UK
of the 1980′s, it was a “down-at -the-heels” country, it remains so,
whether socialist or conservative governments makes no difference, they
struggle to fund a welfare state which is beyond the productive capacity
of the country.
A closer analysis might reveal that every government since 1949 have
been recklessly avoiding funding pension schemes properly.
- December 23, 2012 at 19:50
-
I don’t think Thatcher introduced the ‘my rights, your responsibilty’
culture, but that’s a different debate.
There are many reasons for the decline in support for local good works-
wives and husbands working; people with more than one part time/shift
jobs; more self employed, which mysteriously means working more than 9
till 5. It’s not just selfishness, and what does anybody else owe us
anyway?
I was widowed last year, no family nearby, still devastated, but have
eventually managed to get by and re-engage in some things locally. I know
others that have managed less well, and that pointing them towards
possible interests and contacts doesn’t always work.
Sadly, there’s no easy answer to this one. I think it’s a lot more
about other people’s time than money.
- December 23, 2012 at 20:27
-
Before Thatcher ‘got in’, this country was teetering on the brink of
totalitarian collapse, much the same way it is now heading again.
She
and her advisers breathed some freedom back into the country that was so
plainly self evident, that the Conservatives remained easily in government
for quite a long time.
It was only after she was removed and the
Conservatives managed to make themselves more or less unelectable by
becoming so pathetic, that a stronger sounding Tony Blair was able to get
in.
The fact that you have bought the line you would seem to have done
is an indicator of the rather masterful job the re-writers of history have
done over the last few decades.
- December 24, 2012 at 07:06
-
John B- hard to disagree; my memories of the early ’70s and onwards
in industry in the NW and Glasgow were of chaos. Unions bent on
industrial suicide/socialist nirvana, employers like rabbits in the
headlights. The oil crisis didn’t help either. At a time when leadership
and inspiration was needed we had Heath.
Almost too late when MT
arrived.
I was lucky enough later in the decade to get a spell in the
USA to restore my hope.
- December 22,
2012 at 22:06
-
Is this the reason why People Can went into administration? I can’t
find any articles on the web that state that employees and retirees were
offered the opportunity to take a pension cut..
- December 22, 2012 at 22:49
-
I can’t put links into my comments either – probably best to just paste
the whole www thing if there’s somethig worth looking at.
- December
23, 2012 at 00:06
-
- December 23, 2012 at 10:31
-
Well no, it’s not the reason, is it?
Your linked article gives conflicting opinions about who and what are
to blame and contains no original research to help us.
- December 23, 2012 at 10:55
-
Er, Novas brought with it the pension obligations of its much
larger self, ie before it had divested its social housing arm. It was
like trying to fit a quart of obligations into a pint income pot.
And your original research to support the assertion that employees
turned down a reduced pension is where?
- December 23, 2012 at
11:15
-
Brian it’s not my job to rootle around to find supporting evidence
for your argument so forgive me if I don’t look up the Charity
Commission page for name changes of earlier incarnations of People
Can.
Where did I ever contend that employees turned down a reduced
pension? I know nothing about that.
I do question the quality of the charity’s management and
administration and you appear to be agreeing with me: how could the
trustees and Mr Potts allow the quart/pint situation to take them by
surprise.
I also question the use of charitable status to cloak an
organisation funded out of tax revenues.
- December 23, 2012 at 12:29
-
Read your comment #1 where you reference the Charities Commission
website for People Can. Reading Anna’s post, ie “People Can’ has gone
bust providing excellent pensions to its (currently) 300 employees and
former employees. They were offered the opportunity to take a cut in
their pensions ” might help as well.
- December 23, 2012 at
13:27
-
You extrapolate without any rhyme or reason – my comment #1 says
nothing about the possibility of reduced pensions and referring me to
Anna’s original posting is also a bit lame saince it was written not
by me but by – er – Anna.
By all means take issue with me on what I have written but you seem
to be scratching around rather ineffectually to create an aunt sally
out of what you would like me to have written.
By any yardstick, there has been sub-standard management and
administration of People Can and whether this amounts to
mal-administration is something for PwC and the Charity
Commission.
- December 22, 2012 at 21:13
-
An article from 2009: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/city-pay-culture-has-spread-to-charities-union-says-1817725.html
- December 22, 2012 at 22:48
-
Union chiefs complaining about excessive compensation of fake charities
executives, my word they don’t like competition do they?
- December 22, 2012 at 18:26
-
Is all this any different from how the big religious organisations, such as
the Catholic Church or the Moslem Brotherhood, have behaved for centuries?
It is a technique for making a comfortable living by emotional
blackmail.
- December 22, 2012 at 17:49
-
I used to support that well-known charity The Royal Society for the
Enrichment of Lawyers until it rebranded itself the RSPCA
http://www.cotswoldjournal.co.uk/news/10113248.Heythrop_Hunt_fined_for_fox_hunting/
- December 22, 2012 at 19:46
-
Me too, not another penny, I thought it was to help animals but I gave up
on them over the fox hunting issue when they were nothing more than
lobbyists. I have no strong feelings about hunting except the hounds took
the old and sick, surely better than healthy young animals shot or trapped
but, never having anything to do with hunting that is just my opinion. My
husband once had an IT contract with Oxfam and wouldn’t ever give them
anything as he said everything in their offices were the height of luxury
with no expense spared while they often mocked the ‘silly old ladies’ who
volunteered to work in their shops. I stick strictly to small local animal
charities that get no government funding. I am sick of all the fake
charities.
-
December 26, 2012 at 15:31
-
It wasn’t so long ago that they bulldozed the kennels at their HQ to make
room for some swanky new offices… no doubt to accommodate their lawyers in
the style to which they’ve become accustomed. Sadly another example where
the institution has become more import than the outcome.
- December
22, 2012 at 17:27
-
I have worked for several charities over the years – Oxfam was the worst.
The money they fritter away on unnecessary trivia is unbelievable, so the fact
that this lot put their own pensions first does not surprise me.
There are an awful lot of hypocrites out there…
-
December 22, 2012 at 17:51
-
Here here!- you will find the most self deceptive in the public and
charitable sectors. At least with businesses in the private and commercial
world one is under no illusions of pretence to do do other than line
personal and shareholder pockets.
The public and charitable sector use the ‘poor and vulnerable’ and those
‘needing control of their actions / behaviours’ as the excuse for personal
greed or getting ‘honours’ to further progress careers and gain positions of
importance in the government systems as ‘experts’.
- December 23, 2012 at 14:16
-
It is disturbing how many people I’ve seen on tv or heard on the radio
or read online who don’t realise that business’s are there to make a
profit for their owners and especially these days, the top management.
They complain about not being given time to pay/ unhelpfulness of the
company/ that the company has been economical with the truth and don’t see
that such behaviours are common in the business world because of the
desire for profit.
-
December 24, 2012 at 09:52
-
Well said.
Oxfam lost my support when they rolled over and coughed up
a million dollars tax to the Sri Lankan government on Tsunami assistance to
Sri Lanka instead of going public and/or telling them to go suck a Zube
:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4103054.stm
- December 22, 2012 at 17:20
-
I’ve regularly helped with a local charity for many years. Most of us agree
we do it because we enjoy it as much as because it’s a good thing.
Helping
to meet a need where and when we can is one thing. Squeezing through loony
left H & S, security checks, gender and minority needs hoops imposed by
the uninvolved, no thanks. So the first sign of a contract to tick the
council’s boxes, I’ll walk.
Luckily we don’t need their money.
I’ve had the chuggers at the door. It’s one thing to call with the
Christian Aid envelope /Poppies/Lifeboats. It’s entirely another to get two
earnest young uniformed men pestering you on your doorstep. And last year it
was Macmillan playing politics; shame, their people have been so good.
I
just think charities should be about people doing something they can and want
to do; not opportunists exploiting charitable status or pretending to be some
kind of authority.
So there will be overlaps, and gaps; we do our best but
could do better. So what. We’re volunteers and it’s a charity, not a universal
service.
- December 22, 2012 at
17:30
- December 22, 2012 at 16:24
-
Apalling.
I am sure it won’t be the last charity to fold – the Government squeeze on
funding strikes at many of these organisations. It is, however, utterly
indefensible to put the needs of the staff before those of its service
users.
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:59
-
This http://www.peoplecan.org.uk/ appears to be their web site. I
couldn’t find out how to go about making a donation. What sort of charity
doesn’t ask for contributions or shout about their latest fund raising event
or their star fund raiser?
- December
22, 2012 at 21:37
-
Probably one that is in administration.
- December 22, 2012 at 22:45
-
Take a look at the site, Brian.
- December
22, 2012 at 15:27
-
Charities are the fronts for the corporate realm today, previous to that
they were a tax free money grab for local fat cats to further squeeze the
locals into handing over their cash.
Doubt not the power of the emotional
canon.
Charities today acting as outsource providers to our civil system are not
only limited in transparency, they are limited companies.
Unaccountable with limited liability and they are taking our tax-pounds at
a rate that would make the accounts of the BIS look like the corner
shop.
And Jimmy the ‘charity’ Savile, is but another nail in the coffin for
our social services as they run hand over foot to give it too…..the charitable
trusts..
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:03
-
It has always surprised me that few have asked the question as to why
modern charities actually exist. They are clearly not of the stuff of
voluntary philanthropy of days long gone, nor are they properly statutory
services underwritten by government.
Has no one but me realised just how many make a rather healthy living and
retirement from poverty and the vulnerable – globally? the National
Association of Voluntary Services, the rather ‘bloated’ UK umbrella body,
whose actual purpose is unclear in terms of benefit to the vulnerable, likes
to harp on about the value of charities. But to whom exactly? Those who get
well paid jobs and pensions from them? Most are now ‘corporate structures to
whom an allegiance (not an allegiance to the poor and vulnerable) is an
absolute requisite.
I expect many give to charity because they do not want to personally deal
with the tragedy of ‘real people’ who are not exactly part of their own social
scene. What a sad reflection on human behaviour.
- December 22, 2012 at 14:46
-
I know a very small amount about this stuff. The problem lies in the huge
pensions liabilities that were imported into these arms length bodies when
staff were transferred from the public sector. The bizarre ways in which
pension liabilities and earnings are calculated by accountants (under
direction of the Financial Reporting Standards) means that the contributions
are growing, while the overall pension funds go ever deeper into deficit.
Closing schemes might not be a solution either, since the severance costs (to
protect other contributors) can be enormous. A company has to be making fairly
hefty profits, first to meet the contributions, but also to reassure clients
etc that their negative balance sheet (driven by the liability for the
under-funded pension scheme – £17M in this case) does not mean that they are
insolvent. Clearly, and as the Grauniad piece says, the Pensions Trust did not
believe either the People Can’s business plan or that the charity was
financially stable. Quite what the Gummument was supposed to do about this is
not clear.
- December 22, 2012 at
14:53
-
“that were imported into these arms length bodies when staff were
transferred from the public sector”.
Well, wha’d’ya know! Thank you Stevegee.
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:06
-
Not many charities have staff imported from the statutory sector from
my detailed knowledge of it.
- December 22, 2012 at
15:09
-
Oh, but many charities have structured their staff ‘benefits’ on
local authority rates.
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:14
-
…and although I hesitate to be overtly political here, one must not
forget the fatal damage done to an excellent pensions industry by the
appalling Brown/Balls grab on pension funds, which the coalition have not
reversed, much to their eternal discredit and damnation.
- December 22, 2012 at
17:48
-
Most probably under a law brought in by Labour called Transfer of
Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_Undertakings_(Protection_of_Employment)_Regulations_2006
It’s a killer of enterprise for private sector, and a ring-fencing of
inadequacy in the public sector.
- December 22, 2012 at
17:50
-
Sorry, should have said brought in by Labour but – as is always the
case – emanating from the Socialists in the EU.
-
December 22, 2012 at 17:58
-
Hopefully you will be able to point out the inadequacy of the
surgeons / doctors / nurses who save your life and care for you if you
are ever in a serious accident. Dick.
-
December 22, 2012 at 19:18
-
Don’t start on the inadequacies of the NHS. There seem to regular
scandals these days – Mid Staffordshire, Maidstone, care of the
elderly, and the most recent headlines about the NHS having lost it’s
compassion. There are plenty of decent people who either do, or want
to do, a brilliant job within the NHS, but somehow the monster seems
to be consuming them. The NHS is not as good as it used to be, and too
often is not as good as it should be these days.
-
December 22, 2012 at 23:21
-
Another scandal breaking – the Alexandra hospital in Redditch has
admitted leaving 38 patients screaming in pain, and allowed one to
starve to death.
- December 24, 2012 at 09:55
-
Why? Have they all been TUPE’d out to organisations outside the
NHS? I must have missed that headline.
-
December 22, 2012 at 14:11
-
Yet in other circumstances the same doesn’t apply. The Plymouth Brethren,
which is a relatively small Christian community undertaking genuinely
charitable acts out of Christian duty and fellowship, has been subject to a
very strong attack on their charitable status.
Yet political organizations which have an agenda to push (from aid, to
“Green Issues”, to Common Purpose) are able to exploit their charitable status
as a tax dodge, funded by taxpayer contributions. There should be a radical
redrawing of the lines as to what a charity should be to limit it to providers
of direct welfare to the needy and helpless (poor, old, ill and animals).
Everything outside that should NOT be a charity, certainly no charity should
receive ANY funds from the state as happens widely at the moment (again Common
Purpose is a good example).
- December
22, 2012 at 14:21
-
THIS!
- December 22, 2012 at
14:50
-
This is interesting – and relevant.
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:11
-
What a good link. Clear, unequivocal and succinct. Thanks, Anna.
-
December 22, 2012 at 18:32
-
Hear! Hear!
- December 22, 2012 at 19:21
-
“Anti-poverty policies that focus on economic growth, to the detriment
of social cohesion and sustainability, are doing little to eradicate
poverty, even in one of the world’s richest nations. […] Clearly, trickle
down is not working, and an economy is being created that is not
delivering for a large and growing number of people.’
Pointing out the reasons why a political philosophy is not helping to
solve social problems is obviously a political statemzent. It cannnot be
anything else, given the sectors that these charities work in. If that is
the nature of the beast then so be it.
This contentious prattling about
the Emperor’s new clothes is just messing about with the Titanic’s
deckchairs and certainly unproductive. We are already seeing the results
of Government policies, with an increase in homeless people, soup kitchens
and charity food stores. Coming soon to these streets, 25 year olds with
their families living in cardboard boxes and tents, those with
disabilities of extreme kinds begging from wheeled orange boxes and dying
in doorways.
What does it take for the terminally smug to actually do
something truly selfless? Hear! Hear!
- December 23, 2012 at 21:40
-
Um,” prattling about the Emperor’s new clothes is just messing about
with the Titanic’s deckchairs”…..did you drink the cognac meant for the
Xmas pud and how will you light it now? Thank you for a very unexpected
Xmas present. Now I’m off to clear a couple of dead youth from the
driveway before I remove the wheeled orange box they left.
- December 22, 2012 at 13:54
-
I ignore all those that are not run on the sniff of an oil rag by
volunteers with one or two administrators doing it for the goodness of their
hearts and the minimum wage. Every other charity stinks of public sector
entitlements and leftie self congratulation. I pay taxes so involuntarily
subsidise way too many, I disagree with charity breaks for an awful lot of
lobby front groups calling themselves charities who want me to pay more tax on
windfarms and other superstitions, they have perverted the concept of charity
itself, giving with love.
- December 23, 2012 at 16:07
-
I think most of these big charities are just a bunch of greedy self
serving public sector shysters. If you’re naive enough to give them any
money the vast majority of it will be spend on running the charity with big
salaries for the management team, expenses, and 7 series BMW’s. They all
seem to increasingly employ aggressive street chuggers out to take advantage
of the kind hearted and vulnerable who will be firmly assisted in taking out
recurring never ending direct debits from their bank account.
-
December 22, 2012 at 11:48
-
Potts said his charity was stable financially and winning new
contracts
Huh? That doesn’t sound much like a charity to me and the Guardian article
you link to declares that this outfit had 40 contracts with local authorities.
Amid all the hand-wringing in the Guardian it is clear that what we have here
is a perfectly predictable triumph of self-interest over mock altruism.
Interestingly the Charities Commission shows People Can (Charity Nr.
1139803) as being Registered as recently as 12 January 2011 so it’s a wonder
how its pension obligations can be so onerous. How can this be?
Fake charities going to the wall brightens the festive period
considerably.
- December 22, 2012 at
12:01
-
Could it be that they inherited a bunch of public sector employees whose
love of the gold plated pension is well documented?
- December 22, 2012 at 12:19
-
Well that struck me too as a possibility in which case Mr Potts has
some questions to answer about the quality of his stewardship, doesn’t he,
and the employees in question will be grinding their axes?
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:09
-
I’ve referred to it before, and it’s appropriate to once again, refer
your esteemed readers to Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:-
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that:-
In any
bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who
work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work
for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who
work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to
protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states
that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of
the organization, and will always write the rules under which the
organization functions.
- December 22, 2012 at 15:25
-
Ah yes that good old gold-plated pension argument that gets trotted
out. My colleague, who has worked in the public sector since leaving
school, and has moved up the rank system, will retire on the dizzy sum of
£14,000 per year. Not even copper-plated at today’s copper prices. Let’s
not confuse ourselves with what politicians, whitehall mandarins and
captains of industry manage to get paid into their pensions as they screw
up the country and companies alike.
-
December 22, 2012 at 15:51
-
That dizzy sum of £14,000 is still more than a private individual
would get for the same contributions, your colleague has probably had
their pension pot tripled by the taxpayer, that’s why it’s gold
plated.
-
December 22, 2012 at 16:07
-
Wrong again sadly. You need to work on your maths!
-
December 22, 2012 at 16:10
-
Wrong again sadly. You need to work on your maths! Our pensions
have been cut, but our contributuions have been increased. Our pension
is self-financing and is not in debt. The only 2 employers that I had
in the private sector who had the foresight to contribute to a pension
for me, one in manufacturing the other in media contributed a larger
percentage than my public sector employer does.
-
December 22, 2012 at 16:32
-
The maths aren’t important, the point is that ANY contributions
made by your employer whilst in the public sector is money taken off
taxpayers to boost your pension. A private individual gets a pension
based ONLY on the money THEY have contributed
-
December 22, 2012 at 16:35
-
Wrong again. Both my private sector employers contributed to my
pension. Somebody paid for that in higher prices for the goods that we
sold.
-
December 22, 2012 at 19:08
-
The private provision of pensions has been very badly affected in
the last couple of decades, and especially so in the last five years;
the annuities that a saved pension pot will purchase has about halved
in that time. An index-linked pension costs far more to buy than a
flat-rate one, and retirement before 65 costs more again. Most pension
pots (individually saved, or company schemes) have suffered through
tax relief changes, and through falls in investment returns during the
economic crisis. There is only one FTSE100 company still operating a
final-salary pension scheme, and they are as rare as hen’s teeth
elsewhere.
For a married man aged 60 to purchase an index-linked pension of
£14,000pa would require a pension pot of something like £350,000 to
£400,000 (using figures from the FT). To save that would take quite a
substantial proportion of an average earners’ salary, an unacceptable
proportion of which would disappear in charges levied on their hapless
customers by pension providers..
Someone receiving an occupational pension of £14,000pa will also,
in due course, receive the state pension as well, bringing their
annual income to about £21,000pa. For someone with the mortgage paid
off, and reduced travel (to work) costs, that’s a reasonable (though
by no means excessive) income. It will cover the running costs of a
modest house, food and clothing, and leave a few bob for holidays and
luxuries. Many people survive on far less.
The provision of decent pensions to cover all old-age citizens has
become an absolute mess. Public sector pensions are now the
bestavailable, in some cases by a very considerable margin. Successive
governments have avoided grasping the nettle of ensuring decent and
fair provision (by public, private or employer-run schemes), and some
have actually made things worse. A root-and-branch overhaul is needed,
but there seems to be little actio from government except tinkering at
the margins. The current ‘reforms’ to public pension provision are
simply a belated (and only partial) attempt to prevent the next
generations being saddled with a huge, and growing, liability.
There is no benefit to anyone in not reforming pension law so that
all (public and private sector) can save fairly for a decent income in
old age, without being a burden on future taxpayers. Until someone
really addresses the problem, we’ll be stuck with multitudinous, and
growing, iniquities.
-
December 22, 2012 at 18:40
-
Boo fucking hoo.
-
December 22, 2012 at 23:34
-
Thanks for your valuable input.
- December 24, 2012 at 12:43
-
All I can say is that if he had worked his full 40 years in the Civil
Service, he couldn’t have moved far up the system. After this period you
can expect something like half salary and a lump sum, or somewhat more
if you go without the lump sum,
-
December 24, 2012 at 12:57
-
She!
-
December 22, 2012 at 12:37
-
I noted that, too and find it difficult to imagine how, after one of the
oddest market rallies in history, (stocks, up. Bonds, up (Club Med excepted)
they can acquire such a massive turd in the water pipe.
I don’t believe word of it…
- December
22, 2012 at 21:23
-
Er, People Can was registered in 2011 when it changed its name. Here’s an article about how it came about from the merger of three
charities. As for “fake charities” it competed for contracts to undertake
work for local authorities, work that otherwise might have been done (oh,
the humanity) by local government workers. So they were kept off the books.
Of course, in an ideal world all the damaged people would crawl off and die
quietly so that society could concentrate on upgrading to G4 phones.
- December 22, 2012 at 22:43
-
Brian, your link doesn’t work for me but I’ll take your word for it
although the Charity Commission makes no reference to such an
amalgamation. My contention is that there is maladministration if so young
an organisation folds under the burden of its pension obligations.
Somebody (apart from the taxpayer, who is always the loser) has been sold
a pup and somebody else has done the selling.
I feel myself strangely unmoved by your odd concatenation of ‘damaged
people’ and ‘G4 phones’ in large measure because I refuse to succumb to
the pessimistic mindset that damaged people are neither ever responsible
for their own ‘damage’ nor able to be anything other than suppine in the
face of adversity coupled with an awareness that those of us who are early
adopters of consumerist fads are doing their silly best to replenish the
coffers that you seem to think an unlimited resource for society’s
victims.
- December 23, 2012 at 00:11
-
- December 23, 2012 at
10:19
-
Are you having a giraffe?
According to your link, three organisations merge into one that is
not called People Can, it happens in 2008 rather than 2011 and none of
the protagonists are called Potts.
My browser warned me that the Civil Society site is dangerous to
view.
- December 23, 2012 at 10:44
-
Take a look at the Charity Commission page for People Cam. Do you
see the old names under the heading Other Names? Novas Scarman Trust,
for example. Dear me.
And Oxfam was established in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for
Famine Relief yet the Charity Commission website only records it since
1965 when it was registered under that name:
- December 23, 2012 at 10:56
-
Take a look at the link in my comment # 54 to learn when Mr Potts
joined.
- December 24, 2012 at 13:16
-
Agreed. Too many charities seem to be businesses in disguise and have an
advantage over genuine businesses operating in the same field by virtue of
their tax advantages. Another area of Tax Avoidance that the government
should examine.
{ 79 comments }