The Tories also said they will make payments by results.
I know from friends who've had contact with the charity sector that in certain major household name charities, the very top levels are stuffed with the kind of junketing, salaries and expense abuse that would make even an MP blush
What you've highlighted is the increasing cost of employing people under Labour.
Maybe people did work for a pittance a decade ago, but now employers are forced to pay the minimum wage, forced to comply with things like paternity pay and a whole raft of new and expensive rules and regulations. Add on a sprinkling of increased N.I. contributions as well.
Even charities can't escape the cost of increased employment red tape.
This is just one of several instances of unintended consequences regarding Labour legislation. Non of which seems have been thought through with any foresight.
Can I commend to you a real charity that is worthy of your support?
Sightsavers International (www.sightsavers.org) is a charity protecting and restoring sight in poorer countries. Relatively cheap procedures can restore sight so that poor people can help themselves and not be a burden to other poor people.
It receives nearly all of its income from voluntary donations and almost none from government. It is also startlingly efficient - for example it carries out cataract operations for just £17, whereas it costs the NHS between £800 and £1500 to do the same thing.
Charity starts at home usually the home of the people running the charity. Where I live the place is full of "missionaries" working with hill tribes well they may work with the but they don't live with them, oh no try luxury condominiums with full 24 hour security and weekend golf trips best part of a 2,000 km round trip. I bet the "support groups" would be thrilled to bits if they knew where their coffee mornings money was going. My personal favourite is the British Council a worthy charity doing fine work when you can find it open, 2 hours a day 9 am to 11 am just ask Kinocks son who works for the one in Moscow wonderful institution . They are situated in beautiful surroundings with guards checking vehicles on entering guess who pays for them? Unfortunately the only place you can get a document notarised is by them and this "charity" only charges £60 for the signature, absolute bargain.
go to any of the big charities' websites and download their accounts. find the bit about how much the directory are paid (which has to be there). it's totally shocking!
HJ: Thanks for the recommendation on sightsavers. I always struggle with the ethics of charity.
What Africa needs, really needs, isn't handouts which make them dependent, but big business. Charities, like oxfam, encourages small scale farms which rely on traditional farming methods.
Small farms reliant on traditional farming methods are inefficient, producing small volumes of food and highly vunerable to natural disasters. What Africa needs is: (a) farming methods that use GM crops resistant to drought and disease (b) big farming companies driven by profit, which can be invested into becoming more efficient in food production, and (c) the industrialization of farming to use machines not horses. Instead of supporting these methods, oxfam discourages them.
Oxfam's motives are altruistic and noble; but its methods--encouraging small scale farming-- entrenches poverty in Africa.
Picking out a Charity which has both the motives and the methods to help isn't easy. To give a person vision, enabling them to move towards independence, certainly meets the test of both motive and method.
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