As someone who believes pretty absolutely in the right of each and everyone one of us, however rich or poor, to use our money however we wish I find it difficult to object to the rich using their money to advocate for causes in which they believe any more than I object to them owning vast yachts, which is not at all.
So much as I deplore the use to which the fortune of the late Paul Hamlyn is applied I can’t object in principle any more than I object (not at all) to those who direct their wealth towards the IEA, my idea of a worthy cause.
The big issues which your piece highlights which should exercise us all are the definition of a charity, whether a charity should ever be permitted to engage in political lobbying and whether charities should enjoy any special tax status under the law.
On the face of it charitable status is being grotesquely abused. There are simply far too many charities whose objectives would meet a narrow definition of charity which almost everyone could agree upon (eg the relief of poverty or the impact of natural disasters) as opposed to being middle class hobbies (eg beekeeping - disclosure I am a trustee of one such and believe it shouldn’t be a charity) or naked political campaigning.
The other insidious aspect of the vast network of interconnected, and often sock puppet, charities is their use as fronts by government to which taxpayer money can be directed to lobby the government to implement proposals that the government wants to implement anyway but would prefer the cloak of some apparently independent and worthy charity to hide in. All the stuff that Chris Snowdon valiantly exposes all the time.
I can sympathise with that, but Paul Hamlyn ISN'T choosing to spend money that way, because he's dead, plus he passed over control to trustees, so the question is; are the trustees true to the trust? Maybe they're been captured in the same way as have trustees of many of the old and once trusted institutions, such as museums, or even the National Trust, which makes sure trustees they choose control it, not members.
Secondly, there is to me a clear distinction between charity and politics. If only 'the right' had a fraction of the funds available to the left, it might do the research and take legal action to enforce neutrality of charities.
The third problem is the obscurity of this, probably deliberate, and never given an airing on, for example, the BBC.
The fourth problem is that elected government needs to be very careful taxpayer funding isn't leaking into politics, especially lobbying against government policy, or isn't being wasted.
That was my reaction when reading this that these Charities are appearing to cross the line into political activism. Mind you the Charities Commission are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard and won't do anything about it.
There are thousands upon thousands of charities but (unlike most quangos which expand like topsy) the Charity Commission is a small organisation without great resources. It registers new charities and checks that their objectives satisfy the basic criteria for being a charity, but that’s about it. They aren’t resourced to perform any sort of watchdog role. Most regulatory quangos (eg FSA) get funding to perform a watchdog role by extracting levies from those they regulate. Not surprisingly the Charity Commission doesn’t have the power to extract levies. The charity sector should be regarded as essentially unregulated.
As someone who believes pretty absolutely in the right of each and everyone one of us, however rich or poor, to use our money however we wish I find it difficult to object to the rich using their money to advocate for causes in which they believe any more than I object to them owning vast yachts, which is not at all.
So much as I deplore the use to which the fortune of the late Paul Hamlyn is applied I can’t object in principle any more than I object (not at all) to those who direct their wealth towards the IEA, my idea of a worthy cause.
The big issues which your piece highlights which should exercise us all are the definition of a charity, whether a charity should ever be permitted to engage in political lobbying and whether charities should enjoy any special tax status under the law.
On the face of it charitable status is being grotesquely abused. There are simply far too many charities whose objectives would meet a narrow definition of charity which almost everyone could agree upon (eg the relief of poverty or the impact of natural disasters) as opposed to being middle class hobbies (eg beekeeping - disclosure I am a trustee of one such and believe it shouldn’t be a charity) or naked political campaigning.
The other insidious aspect of the vast network of interconnected, and often sock puppet, charities is their use as fronts by government to which taxpayer money can be directed to lobby the government to implement proposals that the government wants to implement anyway but would prefer the cloak of some apparently independent and worthy charity to hide in. All the stuff that Chris Snowdon valiantly exposes all the time.
I can sympathise with that, but Paul Hamlyn ISN'T choosing to spend money that way, because he's dead, plus he passed over control to trustees, so the question is; are the trustees true to the trust? Maybe they're been captured in the same way as have trustees of many of the old and once trusted institutions, such as museums, or even the National Trust, which makes sure trustees they choose control it, not members.
Secondly, there is to me a clear distinction between charity and politics. If only 'the right' had a fraction of the funds available to the left, it might do the research and take legal action to enforce neutrality of charities.
The third problem is the obscurity of this, probably deliberate, and never given an airing on, for example, the BBC.
The fourth problem is that elected government needs to be very careful taxpayer funding isn't leaking into politics, especially lobbying against government policy, or isn't being wasted.
That was my reaction when reading this that these Charities are appearing to cross the line into political activism. Mind you the Charities Commission are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard and won't do anything about it.
There are thousands upon thousands of charities but (unlike most quangos which expand like topsy) the Charity Commission is a small organisation without great resources. It registers new charities and checks that their objectives satisfy the basic criteria for being a charity, but that’s about it. They aren’t resourced to perform any sort of watchdog role. Most regulatory quangos (eg FSA) get funding to perform a watchdog role by extracting levies from those they regulate. Not surprisingly the Charity Commission doesn’t have the power to extract levies. The charity sector should be regarded as essentially unregulated.