Charity is its own reward

One of the most well known political blogs in the UK is the Devil’s Kitchen. It’s not family-friendly, but DK’s posts are certainly cathartic to read, and probably more-so to write. DK has been branching out into investigative work, and along with a few compatriots has created a new web service - FakeCharities.org.

The premise of FakeCharties.org is to create a database of organisations that are nominally “charitable” but in fact exist largely as agencies of the government.

[FakeCharities.org] ask two questions when deciding whether to add a charity to this database:

1. Does the charity receive more than 10% of its income from the tax-payer AND/OR receive more than £1,000,000 a year from the tax-payer?
2. Is the charity engaged in lobbying the government and/or influencing government policy?

We not talking small change either; millions of pounds are being passed around. Reading this got me thinking about the charitable sector in Bristol.

(Diagram: Influence in the City of Bristol)

You may be aware (I mention it quite a lot) that I’m standing for election to Bristol City Council, and so like every other candidate I get a few bits of candidate-specific junk mail such as details of ceremonies, timetables and where to go (should I win) to pick up first prize of a blackberry and a laptop.

One other item I have received this year is an A3 calendar from Voscur – Bristol’s “Council for Voluntary Service”. That is how it styles itself these days, although originally, Voscur was the “Voluntary Organisations Standing Conference On Urban Regeneration“. The calendar is very nice – lots of pretty pictures of Bristol, and wibble about “extending agendas”, “website toolkits” and of course “diversity”. It also includes the summary financial accounts of the organisation.

Voscur, based at the CREATE Centre, is not a charity but rather a limited company (#03918210) that acts as a trade body for local voluntary sector groups. Or “third sector" groups as it is fashionable to call them these days. [Update: I’m behind the times. The fashionable term is now vcse sector – Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise] Voscur’s rebranding as a Council for Voluntary Services is a reinvention of a concept that the City Council dumped in the mid-eighties:

The previous Bristol Council for Voluntary Services (BCVS) closed shortly after Bristol City Council removed its core grant in 1987. The closure of BCVS was an acrimonious affair, although it was generally recognised that the organisation was not fulfilling the needs and aspirations of the local voluntary sector.

Having taken over the BCVS role, Voscur now offers training courses, provides consultancy to charities and runs events. It also promotes and administers a few schemes and initiatives for local government, including Bristol’s Neighbourhood Partnerships. Despite being a membership organisation, a quick perusal of Voscur Ltd’s accounts reveals that over 90% of its income is derived from public sector grants – £626,787 – whereas only £16,505 is obtained from members’ subscriptions. Public sector funders include Bristol City Council, the European Union, the Lottery of course, and various bits of Whitehall apparatus.

Personally I don’t need the services that Voscur provide, hence I am not a member. But nevertheless, like all local taxpayers I am contributing towards its running costs. The fifteen employees of this non-profit organisation, earning an average wage of £25,900 - slightly below the UK median wage, but higher than median Bristol wage - may well provide a useful service to local charities and (sigh) social entrepreneurs, in which case the management team should investigate a more sustainable income model in which their customers pay for services directly.

On a more general note, something has gone wrong with charity in the UK. Early last year, when commenting on 2008’s Council budget crisis [don’t worry if you missed it, there will be another one along soon], I wrote about the situation:

We have a problem with the "Third Sector" in Britain, in that it has become more and more dependent on the state for funding. One can understand why charitable giving is down, with 40% of British wages being taken in tax, but the net effect has been a vicious cycle in which voluntary organisations - starved of voluntary funding - become vassals of government. On a positive note, the largest private charitable foundation in the world, the Rotary Foundation, still maintains its independence.

The long term goal for anyone with a bit of common sense must be to restore independence to charities which can only come through cutting off state funding (see the Burning Our Money blog for more analysis). But doing it all in one go - attractive as that might seem to the radical - leaves a lot of well-meaning people in the lurch. We've seen the outcome of the "Cold Turkey" effect recently in Bristol with the winding down of local Third-sector welfare from two large grant-giving central funds – the Neighbourhood Fund and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, both in control of Whitehall.

It’s not just about reducing taxes – although that is important – but about independence of thought and action. He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

So I’ll be keeping an eye out for any local candidates to be submitted to the FakeCharities.org database. If you know of any, have a look at their statutory accounts in the Register of Charities at the website of the Charity Commission and submit them yourself.

Related Links

• NHS Blog Doctor discusses real charity workers –the Royal National Lifeboat Institute
• Introduction to the Voscur Website Toolkit  on You Tube (5 view and counting)