Ministers have given away more of our money to a failing charity only to see it disappear in a puff of smoke.
Charity Kids Company, which received £3m from ministers a week ago, has told the government it will close its services on Wednesday evening.
Apparently, after the money was spent on staff payments and other sundries – expressly contrary to what the money was for – they are trying to get it back. Hah! The irresponsible bastards should never have given it in the first place. They should be made personally responsible for refunding the taxpayer.
It is not the place of the government to give our money to charities. Any charity – let alone one run as badly as this one was.
If it takes Government money, it is not a charity. It is a QUANGO.
Wouldn’t it be nice if some public-spirited MP used this sorry episode as a springboard to demand a re-classification of charities which receive Government funding? On the brilliant site (now sadly closed) Fake Charities there was an incredibly good suggestion of re-classifying charities which receive taxpayer money, depending on how much of their income came from public funds, so that ones which are almost wholly funded by the taxpayer would have to be classified as (something like) Government Department Councils/Committees etc; ones which were less than 50% but over 10% funded having to call themselves (something like) Government-assisted charities; and those receiving less than 10% could still call themselves charities. These exact percentages may well be out, and I know that the site’s suggested names for these organisations were a lot better than the ones I’ve suggested here (my memory of the site is now quite hazy), but in principle it was a brilliant idea. I personally would also like to see a similar re-classification along the same lines when a charity is largely funded by powerful business interests, i.e. the charity name would have to incorporate the name of their biggest benefactor, so that any “vested interests” could be easily recognised.
But will any MPs use this opportunity to shake up the scam that is the “charity” system? Unlikely, to be frank.
More than unlikely, Jax:- they have to show their ‘compassionate caring’ by throwing our money around…
The irony is that this scandal is a natural consequence of the right wing libertarian notion that we should make the state “smaller” by outsourcing social care to charities.
No, it isn’t. This is a consequence of the state funding charities (which it shouldn’t) and failing the most basic due diligence with our money. Bugger all to do with outsourcing care.
You are missing the point. The state is funding charities BECAUSE it is outsourcing social care to them, in this case support for abused children.
I’m not missing the point at all. You are. This is a charity – charities (proper ones) will sometimes carry out activities that might otherwise be carried out by the state. The state,however, should not be in the business of funding them.