New minister for civil society Brooks Newmark put his foot in it yesterday when making his very first speech when, according to the Guardian he told charities that they should "stick to their knitting" and keep out of politics.
The minister entirely misses the point, of course. First, I am quite sure that people do give to charities like Oxfam, Action Aid and Christian Aid (full disclosure: I have worked with them all) because they ask awkward questions about why people are in need, as well as trying to help them.
Second, our concern is not with knitting, it's with the fact that the fabric of society is collapsing. And if it is not charitable to ask why that is happening when it is charities who pick up and have to deal with so many of the consequences I am not sure what he thinks charitable activity might be.
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In recent years there has been a concerted attempt by the Conservatives to demean charities that disagree with their worldview.
The ridiculous lengths which they will go to to do this is perhaps best exemplified by Harry Phibbs, who has even resorted to claiming that the National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England are Labour front groups (he also claimed that the NT are like a “demented Marxist agitprop outfit”).
What’s really worrying is he might really think that
As chair of board of directors for a CAB , I can ssure you we also are a charity. One that Vince Cable rates as the most accurate source of national data for government.
I am appalled that a minister can be so complacently ignorant of his fiefdom! And so arrogant as to trumpet his ignorance, so soon!
Alison Graham
Thanks
@Alison: Great letter of yours (and others) in today’s Indie re free school meals. I’ve shared on Facebook and it has started a big debate.
With protests/marches and other demonstrations being slowly legislated out and now this little gem who will be able to ‘do politics’? A licensed elite whose views general vary only slightly?The mechanisms are all in place and the biggest barrier overcome long ago in the most of us don’t seem to give a monkey’s. A vote every five years with a varying shades of grey to choose from is not democracy and it is not healthy politics.
A neo-feudal plutocracy is on its way
There is always hope. We need people to shine the light on this darkness at and in the run up to the General Election by getting out there and engaging with the people, We cannot afford to sleepwalk into where the Westminster Convergence want to lead us. That means that some will have to put to one side historic party allegiance. The truth as I see it is that the only difference between Dave, Nick, Ed and Nigel for that matter, are the traditions they have come from, not the place they want to take us.
I agree Richard. These Parties are effectively dead. Politics has to be rebuilt from the ground up so that we can rediscover social purpose as a driver of the political debate.
Agreed. But there *is* an alternative to the “big 4” parties: I’m very pleased that the Green Party has decided to present itself explicitly as the left-wing alternative to Labour. The Greens are already running at 5% in some polls and if they can poll somewhere between 5 and 10% at the next election that would be a huge increase in vote share and would really shake up British politics.
I am speaking at the Green Party Conference tomorrow evening
Hope you’ll pay a visit to the Labour Land Campaign stall, Richard. Both our President (Dave Wetzel) and a Vice Chair are now members of the Green Party.
If I get the chance!
I’m also at labour on 23/9
This is deeply shocking. It humiliates and vilifies a whole constituency of people, sidelining them to some supposed ‘neutered’ place. It is also deeply sexist and on a par with ‘calm down dear.’
The idea that there is an ‘apolitical’ sphere is a ghastly distortion of reality.
One of the reasons for our own activism to be based on a company rather than a charity form is that we can do mostly what we want within the law to raise awareness without permission from a commission.
As my late founder always said “Lift the rock, shine the flashlight. The insects always run out”
Remember my letter about the Inclusive Capitlism conference which excluded everyone but the financial elite. Today Martin Wolf asks the same question we began with 18 years ago this month – What is the purpose of business?
http://www.conferenceoninclusivecapitalism2014.com/IC_ESSAY_Book_3.pdf
Richard
You are far too polite toward him – the longer we ‘tolerate’ such idiots the less progress we will make.
I seem to recall that it was the sainted ‘Margaret.’ that made charities into bodies that had to compete in the market to earn their way and fulfill a function. If current ‘politics’ cant bear the critisism why adopt a change that makes competition inevitable, lobbying is bound to follow. Business seeks special favours so charirties have been taking notice.
Thank you Howard for pointing out the presence of course of the Greens. However they didn’t have a candidate where I am in 2010, so I’m currently working on the assumption that they wont this time.
I think the Greens should be running a full slate of 650 candidates – of course it’s expensive as most will lose their deposit but one could say the same about the “Fib Dems” among others…
Live in Brighton for a while first!
I think the issue is the extent of the political aspect. We all hold political opinions . But there is no doubt in my mind that some Charities have been captured by left Wing cliques, but on the other hand I can can think of some captured by Right wing cliques. But what I don’t like is Charity spending on bureaucracy and pet hobby horses. Nor do I like Charity salaries for management over National average wage.
One big problem that I have direct experience of, is the weak supervision of the Charities Commission, which reverts to useless as soon as any overseas aspect appears.
I think your position on wages absurd
Do you honestly think charities will always recruit the people trhey need – like chartered accountants – on £26k a year?
And where’s the evidence of capture by the left? The right is obvious – look at the Institute of Economic Affairs. But the left? Where?
Remember the relief of poverty has been a charitable cause for hundreds of years. Asking why people are poor is part of that
We agree on the Charities Commission – it’s sole role is to stop left wing charities and permit those from the right
People will inevitably join together to provide for the good of the whole. What is so disheartening is to see those endeavours sold by gov. just to provide a profit for their buddies. Social provision was for the good of the Whole just like NSPCC. The more resources leached away from people the less they will be able to look after themselves. Slavery next stop!
Stephen Griffiths
I can see your point. If a charity expects others to give, it isn,t unreasonable to expect its executive to survive on the bare minimum.
OTOH, many of the charities are massive organisations & whoever is CEO is going to be working a 50+ hour week. They can’t be expected to go out & work evenings to make ends meet.
I don’t think one can easily justify anything above £50k for the biggest.
For once we disagree
I think I’m inclined to agree with Eriugena’s here, Richard. There has to be a sense of service here and giving. If we are going to use the market wage rule then we are applying the same reason that CEO’s salaries have reached elephantine proportions: ‘if we don’t pay this they go elsewhere’. A lowest common denominator form of reasoning. The concept of service must be present -if a person has trained as a chartered accountant this is a privilege to have such skills and abilities to be put to social use. Pay a respectable wage -why so much more?
When I worked as a teacher, I went in at weekends, did ten hour days quite often and was always putting in the extra mile. There was no bonus for this just more job satisfaction and a feeling of giving (which always gives back). Of course people need a decent wage – but is this the only motivational draw. This culture of wads of dosh before we can give of ourselves must change.
I think you’d find the NGO sector collapse
I’m not in favour of that
And yes – I declare an interest
I earn more than £50,000 a year for what I do
You might well be right, Richard, in which case we have to carry on as we do -I’m not trying to be idealistic just raise a voice for a cultural shift.
In the end wages are largely about chasing housing bubbles which, at present, seem infinitely inflatable and probably the dominant, bogus measure of GDP increase. Chasing uncontrollable debt means an infinite hunt for more money.
Richard
you make a fair point on all NGOs, perhaps I should’ve been more specific. In Birmingham I’ve never seen people shaking cans collecting for Tax Justice Network!
If you are a charity that relies on donations, often made by people that don’t themselves have much, I think its only fair that the charity executives take as little as is possible. £50k pa doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
As Simon says, we need to get away from the idea that the “market” sets the wage. We all know functioning markets don’t exist outside a small number of actual markets, like Billingsgate or Digbeth. Someone who works for a charity should be prepared to accept a lower wage in the hope that their work makes a difference. After all, that is what the vast majority of secondary school teachers, particularly maths & science teachers, do every day.
I respect that viewpoint. TJN embraces it. I admit I would have had real difficulties doing so. I am being honest
” I admit I would have had real difficulties doing so ”
Thanks for your honesty , Richard. Is this because, for your qualifications there is an expectancy of a certain standard of living? You might have reasons you don’t want to divulge, of course and I’m aware the Chartered Accountancy course is very demanding (I once shared a house with someone doing it at Deloitte!).
Of course, the middle class dream and the house in the ‘right location’ may be a factor and the conviction we have earnt the right not to be amongst the poor and the ‘great unwashed’. But aren’t we perpetuating something questionable here? We didn’t create our own skills and potential and in the end don’t achieve things we are not capable of -so why the meritocratic approach, it’s ultimately divisive.
I know there is no easy answer -but certainly a housing price crash could help!
Yes: I will be quite honest, whilst we changed a very great deals in our lives to let me do tax justice I suspect that there was only so far that I could have gone at the time
And yes, that would have meant I would have found it difficult to live within an imposed constraint of the type you propose
Not least because I also work with high productivity for considerably more hours than an average week
But maybe that just reflects the fact that I was adjusting from my past entrepreneurial background, and still accept the need for a mixed economy and so do not think the imposition of constraints of the type suggested could work at present
I make vastly less than I could have done
But I do make more than £50,000 a year. No one who has funded me has been under any illusion about that or the fact that I think my peer group for comparison is university professors. I think it a fair benchmark
PS I am willing to accept this as failing on my part in the eyes of sum. But I never claimed to be without flaw
Simon
We desperately need more social housing.
We could, however, turn the insane housing boom backwards tomorrow if the Govt wanted to. Pass a law:
1) It is illegal for any Financial Institution to advance a mortgage of more than 3 times the borrower’s annual salary
2) Loans made contrary to (1) are not enforceable.
Job done.
Indeed, Land Value Tax would help and making sure that the buyers were the one’s living in the property. I think the latter was proposed by the SNP if I’m not mistaken. With house prices at least 37% of salaries (60% in some areas) the money chase will never end.
This may not be the correct place to introduce this, but I consider it slightly relevant:
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/09/04/unemployment-crisis-irony-you-must-have-a-job-to-get-a-job/
I have been aware, for years, of the difficulty of finding employment if unemployed!
And of getting work without experience – which is always demanded
Richard
I think your honesty most commendable but, as said, I wasn’t really thinking of you or similar NGOs but of the people that actually rely on street donations.
I fully appreciate this may be simply muddled thinking but it makes me queasy to think of the CEO of a nationally known charity pulling in £200k pa or something & comparing that with the poor old lady doing without Sunday dinner to put £5 in.
In terms of what a job is “worth”, it is almost impossible to say, of course. I used to explain free market economics as meaning that the best neurosurgeon in NYC was paid, perhaps, $1m pa for treating brain damage, but Mike Tyson was paid $20m pa for causing it!
I wouldn’t ever question someone who has generally achieved expecting to be paid commensurately. I also think the free-lander should always expect a slightly higher cheque than the office-holder. You have no holiday or sick pay, no security. You’re always dreading being given your cards. I’m not convinced office-holders in big charities should be pulling in the amounts they are &, were I them, I wouldn’t sleep well.
Regards
e
I think there is a bench mark though – maybe a secondary head teacher
But I hope that’s not £200k
”
“Free lander” should, of course, be “free lancer”. No intended reference to the Highland Clearances. All I know of the Highlands could be inscribed on a bottle of Camp Coffee.