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NHS Charity money cant be spent on day to day NHS costs or standard Capital investment (fixing or building new bits).
Its very basically for ‘nice’ things. Our place has spent recently on artwork, new staff and patient rest areas and ipads for isolated patients.
As was made fairly clear in a lot of media articles at the time?
Why? I gather your own home has bare walls painted in utilitarian colours with paint left over from painting some silo’s at a nuclear power station?
Nope, but then again my house isn't chronically underfunded like the nhs. If I was skint and someone gave me 100 quid to spend, I wouldn't splash it on fancy wall decorations when the heating bill needed paid.
But then again, if that is what nhs charity payments are put towards, fair enough. I hadn't realised.
tpbiker
Full MemberI’d be pretty pissed off if I thought any money I ever gave to the nhs was going on artwork tbh!
Not to detract from the captain’s achievements, but a 103 year old chap named Alfons Leempoels attempted to walk a marathon around his garden at same time. No idea if he finished or not, last report I could see he had completed roughly 13 km..and raised just 6k.
"Not to detract" why post it then? 🤷♂️ He did a good thing, for the right reasons. He didn't call himself a hero. He didn't organise this bullshit clap.
Ps. Alfons Leempoels states that Tom Moore was actually the inspiration for doing his walk so that's not really the best example to use:
Leempoels said the idea came to him when he saw World War Two veteran Tom Moore, 100, strike a chord in Britain by raising the equivalent of more than $40 million for the country's health service by walking around his garden.
NHS Trusts/ NHS Foundation trusts have their own charities that fund all sorts of stuff but they have to be separate from the normal hospital operations. That doesn't mean they don't fund new facilities, patient support services, research etc but the charities have to be clear what the purpose of the funding is. Have a look at some of the trust that have big charitable arms eg Christe, GSOH, Royal Marsden etc
There is a principle of additionality in public finance which I think is causing confusion. Charitable funds can only be used for things that are not already funded through taxation - this is a general principle to stop public bodies/governments from just directly using or requiring local bodies to use charitable funds (including the national lottery) to substitute for taxation - and you know this Govt would given half a chance.
Saying "it can only be spent on art etc" is a bit of a our favourite right wing tabloid's spin
So now a priest has received death threats and racist/homophobic abuse for daring to have an alternative opinion. Bet all the people who complained and signed the petition are the same morons who constantly whine about cancel culture and freedom of speech.
Robinson-Brown wrote: “The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism. I will offer prayers for the repose of his kind and generous soul, but I will not be joining the ‘National Clap’.”
He swiftly deleted his comment, and offered “an unreserved apology for the insensitive timing and content of my tweet regarding the clap for Captain Tom”. He later deleted his Twitter account.
The tweet drew a furious response on social media and in other forums, including the Millwall football club fans’ chat room. By 5pm on Friday, almost 18,000 people had signed an online petition calling on the church to “remove him from his post, on the basis he is a divisive and damaging figure that has insulted the memory of a national treasure and true hero of this country”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/07/church-aided-the-pile-on-of-curates-captain-tom-tweet
Tom foundation paying not insignificant funds for management & to company's run by his daughter, I bet Tom's chuffed to bits 😕
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-60319650
What's that as a percentage of funds raised, and available to disperse...? And how does that compare to other charities?
Paid out £160k in grants, costs at £209k including £162k management costs according to the article.
What’s that as a percentage of funds raised, and available to disperse…? And how does that compare to other charities?
According to the article, and some quick maths, a bit more than 50%. I doubt that compares favourably to other charities. Obviously more money came in than that.
From the BBC
According to the published accounts, covering the charity's first year from 5 May 2020 to 31 May 2021, it paid out grants to four charities worth £40,000 each but spent £209,433 on support costs including £162,336 on "management".
.
£400k spent including donations costs it raised £1m in the year of the audit so £600k unused. His daughter’s fee was £27k.
As % of the £40million raised. Not saying it's not dodgy but... How much of the big sum has been paid out?
Articles say that she used staff in her company to process the huge number of communication and donations.
quite a bit less than 50%
I asked about costs as a percentage of funds raised... for a reason... the period of fund raising for this charity was short and intense... it should be paying out for a long time. The costs will be front loaded more than most charities, it's more like an event charity, such as Live Aid.
I asked about costs as a percentage of funds raised
That's still 20% which is rather high, but that is offsetting the admin fee against funds you are really administering
Articles say that she used staff in her company to process the huge number of communication and donations.
I wonder if she charged everybody at their standard consultancy rates, or more realistic charity employee figures?
I hope its not dodgy and the numbers show that once all is revealed. It would be a shame to tarnish what happened
How is it 20% ? It says they raised £33,000,000 in that news story.
For what it’s worth, I found the whole old solider angle to the story all very tabloidy, even as a forces child… just trying to work out if this is a “setting up and running large charity from a standing start costs money” non-story being made headline worthy when it might be quite ordinary.
How is it 20% ? It says they raised £33,000,000 in that news story.
Not in the first year that the accounts are for (although I might still be wrong, that's just my quick calculation). There's a link in the BBC article with the numbers if you want to work it out
How much should it cost to set up and run a charity that size? I really don’t know. Without comparison to other charities, I have no idea if this is really a story.
How is it 20% ? It says they raised £33,000,000 in that news story.
I see what you're getting at, but how much does it cost to administer transferring the funds from a justgiving.com page to an account? A thousand, two thousand for a few hours of an accountant and solicitors' time to do the paperwork setting it up? What cost the other £160k?
Is that a guess, or are you sharing knowledge of the third sector? I ask, because when anyone guesses the cost of anything any business does, they always miss out nearly everything that needs doing and paying for. I’m suspicious that my own lack of knowledge about charities leave me poorly placed to have any clue what is actually involved, what is normal, and what is taking the piss.
The captain tom foundation is entirely separate from the £33m raised for NHS & was set up after, as far as I can see the 4 x 40k grants were paid to established charities.
Ah... I see.. thank you! So the £33million is a complete red herring? This charity raised only a £1million? From personal appearances etc? The 20% makes sense now. Thank you. Is that high? It does sound it. What's normal?
Non-story for me.
As above this is a foundation setup to take advantage of Captain Tom’s charitable pull separate to the £30m+ he raised for nhs charities.
Raised £1.1m
Still got £700k
Spent £200k on direct fundraising costs/fees and onward causes (£160k)
And £200k on ‘management’
The related party note covers it and it seems to be costs and expenses reimbursed and you’d hope the accountants and then auditors would be all over the related party transactions knowing the accounts would probably get press interest.
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS
During the period reimbursement of costs of £16,097 were made to Club Nook Limited, a company under the control of H Ingram-Moore (a trustee for part of the period and spouse of a trustee), in respect of accommodation, security and transport relating to Captain Sir Tom Moore travelling around the UK to promote the charitable company. H Ingram-Moore and D C Ingram-Moore are also directors of Club Nook Limited.
During the period payments of £37,942 were made to Maytrix Group Limited, a company under the joint control of D C Ingram-Moore and H Ingram-Moore, in respect of website costs (£5,030), photography costs (£550), office rental (£4,500), telephone costs (£656) and third-party consultancy costs (£27,205). These costs were initially funded by Maytrix Group Limited on behalf of the charitable company, and reimbursed when sufficient funds were available. H Ingram-Moore and D C Ingram-Moore are also directors of Maytrix Group Limited.
During the period expense payments of £1,686 were made to H Ingram-Moore in respect of motor, post, subscription and travel costs.
I'd say that was probably ballpark average for many charities, rightly or wrongly.
For what it’s worth, I found the whole old solider angle to the story all very tabloidy, even as a forces child…
Looking on from the outside captain Tom's actions played beautifully for the media. Who doesn't want to see a plucky old soldier doing his bit to raise funds for an underfunded health service. Nothing like a bit of skewed jingoism to fill the heart with pride.
How much should it cost to set up and run a charity that size? I really don’t know. Without comparison to other charities, I have no idea if this is really a story.
The answer is, it depends.
The expectations of many are that things are done for free. For some people it turns into a job or business.
My insights into the third sector is that it often attracts good people doing good things. It also attracts grifters and there is an entire industry out there working the system that most don't see.
Whether the payments are ordinary for the sector are one thing, whether the people who donated are happy about them is another
Looks like Club Nook was set up purely to handle his transport and accommodation (security???? 🤷🏻♂️)
And Maytrix Group Limited has done very nicely thank you in the last 2 years.
🤔
I am not an accountant but I bet they got some sharp advice on how best to "handle" the success of the captain walking around the garden.
I'm sure it's all within the bounds of acceptable but probably not what the public imagines.
Hence the fact it's headlining in most news media. I doubt that if it was 100% above board it would be in the news.
I suspect a few eyebrows have been raised at the charities commission.
How much of the big sum has been paid out?
the trust I work for bandied about ideas for a bit,
Through our joint charity – Lincolnshire NHS Charity, we have already used money raised by Captain Tom in a variety of ways, including; new garden furniture, providing community staff with drinking bottles and improving facilities in staff rooms.
The charity still has a large amount of funds left to spend on initiatives/items which support health and wellbeing, but we need your help! Tell us what you think we should spend the remaining money on – ideally this would be something that has longevity and will benefit as many people as possible.
As part of money raised by Captain Sir Tom and others during the first COVID-19 lockdown, LPFT and colleagues at Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust, were given a pot of money from NHS Charities Together. Part of this fundraising was intended to be spent on staff wellbeing as a thank you for all you have done during the pandemic. Through our joint charity, Lincolnshire NHS Charity, we have already used the money in a variety of ways but still have funds left to spend on initiatives/items that support health and wellbeing.
Tell us what you think we should spend the remaining money on! Ideally this would be something that has longevity and will benefit as many people as possible.
that was last May
i've seen none of it used anywhere
I’m suspicious that my own lack of knowledge about charities leave me poorly placed to have any clue what is actually involved, what is normal, and what is taking the piss.
Hi, Charity Accountant here, I'll share my wisdom if you like. Or if you don't. On the whole thing. Sorry.
There are a lot of different allegations and people confusing and conflating some of them, so from the top:
Did they spend more in "running costs" than they gave out in grants in year 1?
Yes, £160k grants given, just over £200k other running costs
Isn't that scandalous?
Sounds bad, doesn't it? I mean, yes it could be. But not necessarily. As someone noted, the pulling power of Captain Tom, regardless of his change of status, life wise, is likely time limited so getting the maximum in as quickly as possible would be a legitimate priority, spending doesn't necessariy need to be rushed, in fact there are very good reasons not to rush into throwing grants out just to look busy in the accounts.
Of that £200kish, £126k is described in the accounts as "fundraising consultancy" or something like that. They brought in a bit over a £1m in the year. If you do what is the normal measure and stack that up, it tells a different story. I know professional fundraisers. They would kill (not literally, probably) for a return on fundraising investment like that. It's fantastic. So what that they raised a £1m and £700k of that was left on an arbitrary accounting date? The trustee report notes that they made a load of grants after the reporting date.
And then of course, it's a brand new charity. There's more detail in the trustees's report and actually that consultancy was more than just fundraising, they were advising on governance and how to apply funds and anyway the point is that this is a load of one-off, front loaded cost that you won't expect to see in year 2. If they get to year 5 and they're recurrently spending more on consultancy than grants then that's a different kettle of monkeys, but for this year? No, it's reasonable.
Hang on, they paid this consultancy money to the family didn't they?
No, it was paid to a completely separate, unconnected third party, they are named in the trustee report. Drac reported that the daughter charged a fee. This is incorrect, there are no fees paid for consultancy or anything else to the family.
No, it says in the related parties note that they paid the family companies for consultancy?
This is where loads of people are getting confused, let's do the whole note, someone else has already quoted it on the thread, but first a note on audit.
The fees for the audit of the charity were something like £8k. If an auditor fouls up, they can be fined, struck off, it's really not something they take lightly. THey prioritise what they look at, and the related parties transaction conversation at the planning stage between auditor and client will have been something like this:
A: Tell us about the related party transactions
C: Well, there's the company that took Captain Tom and his support / carers (who are also family members?) round the place raising funds. Hotels, travel, security. £16k.
A: Fair enough, we're going to need to see the receipts and evidence of the events taking place, please
C: A sample?
A: No, all of them I think. Any more?
C: There's Maytrix, that's the family business. When we were first setting up the charity and didn't have a bank account the company paid for loads of stuff, setting up the website, renting an office, the first consultancy bills.
A: Fair enough, but again, we'll need to see everything on those please, any more?
C: Yes, finally, the daughter claimed £1600 of sundry expenses, do you want to see..
A: Yes please.
My take: You can question spending £16k on the Captain / family travel etc if you like. I'm sure the auditors did. Maybe they took the piss, tbh the guy was 99 / 100, if they put him up somewhere half decent I'm okay with that. Associated benefit to other family members, if there was any, might be more problematic.
The Maytric money is nothing. They effectively lent the charity money at the start. They should be thanked. The expenses will be legit, the auditors will have looked at them closely.
But wasn't some of the money paid to Maytrix for consultancy?
Yes, but it is explicitly stated in the accounts that it was like the other stuff, i.e. to a third party. The words "third" and "party" literally appear in the note. However one of the prominent social media accounts that 'broke' the story (Politics Joe) missed it and misreported it as fees charged by the company. This error has been picked up subsequently and appeared in a number of "proper" media outlets (which is interesting itself).
Is that it then? Nothing to see here apart from maybe a few cheeky hotel dinners?
Not quite, there's their reserves policy. It appears to be complete bollocks, and no one is talking about it.
Charities have to have a reserves policy, have to publish it, and justify why it is what it is. It is up to trustees to determine what it should be and why. If it can be justified, you could have a policy to not hold reserves. Kids Company did this. It didn't end well, but equally there are those who say it's wrong for charities to hold onto money and it should all be spent on the mission, right now.
For small charities on a perpetual knife edge they might aim to always make sure they have enough in the bank to cover all their commitments in the event of closure. Charities working on the basis of more assured sustainability might frame it as e.g. 6 months running costs, or 9 months payroll cost or something like that.
The Captain Tom Foundation paid £4.5k for office rent and had no paid employees. There are no long term financial commitments (not so much as a photocopier lease, there would need to be a long term commitments note in the accounts if they did) and yet their trustees have assessed that the levels of reserve required against financial commitments is.. "circa £500,000" to which my reaction is, to use technical accounting language, You're avin a laff aintcha?
Any questions?
Good to get a view from someone who is able to translate what's in the public domain
It's probably a storm in a tea cup, unfortunately the family may get tainted for trying to do the right thing, if not the regulator is having a look
There are plenty of worse examples out there
The expectations of many are that things are done for free. For some people it turns into a job or business.
My insights into the third sector is that it often attracts good people doing good things. It also attracts grifters and there is an entire industry out there working the system that most don’t see.
Whether the payments are ordinary for the sector are one thing, whether the people who donated are happy about them is another
So much to unpack from three sentences..
The "stuff doesn't cost you things when you're a charity" myth is real. People are genuinely unprepared to conceive that there are costs that aren't the cost of directly doing the "thing".
It "turns into" a job? Yeah, people who do things for charities also need to eat and clothe their children and stuff. See also "stuff isn't free" above.
"..or a business." well, no, it doesn't. By definition. Charities should be run in a business-like way. That is to maximise efficiency, therefore maximising resources that go directly on the "thing" you do. But they can't become businesses, the requirements are contradictory and incompatible.
Charities may own businesses, many do e.g. a chain of charity shops. That should not be confused with the charity itself and what it does, it is a fundraising vehicle.
"It also attracts grifters and there is an entire industry out there working the system that most don’t see." I hear this a lot and actually it is a flaming terrible industry to target for grift, there's a load of extra regulation on top of what you have with a normal business (most of the stuff that people are getting hot under the collar about the Capt T thing is only published info because of charity reporting requirements, businesses can pay their directors whatever they like for hotel rooms, and not say anything specific about it in their accounts). Where you do see theft is from employee fraud, and usually resulting from poor financial controls, which comes back to whether you want robust well run charities, which costs money to do as opposed to skimping on everything to max spend on the "thing" which brings us to
"whether the people who donated are happy about them is another" which is a nightmare, because reasonably enough, donors want to fund the "thing" not safeguarding training or antivirus software or management accountants or catering for an event. So what do you do?
"Dear Donor
You may have heard that our systems have been hacked and I can confirm that all your personal information, including your bank details, have been stolen. We would like to remind you that you specified when you made your donation that you didn't want us to waste it on things like decent IT, and now here we are."
"Dear Stakeholder
You may have heard about the unfortunate cases of abuse at one of our facilities. Our funders have made it clear that they expect the service to be delivered by volunteers with minimal training as opposed to by paid professionals, and similarly our safeguarding lead is a volunteer who only comes in every other Tuesday so she hadn't yet seen the whistleblowing email referred to in the media reports. Just one of those things, we meant well. "
Donate to a charity if you support what they do. Don't tell them how to spend the money in order to do what they do unless you know better than them. The chances of you knowing how to do a thing better than the people who do that thing, generally, is slim.
Thanks @Edlong but I did read that she had been paid, of course it doesn’t mean it’s true. To me it was clear this was a dramatic headline, as a new charity it was going to have some initial lay outs.
I remember at the time thinking the family needs to be careful that it wouldn't be taken over by right wing nationalists.
Then I saw the daughter on the telly.
I mentioned in my brief summary the Politics Joe error and it being picked up and used elsewhere. I might be getting this wrong because I've not read the whole things, but from what I've seen, the Independent and Times seem to have taken the "don't really understand this but we can phrase it in a way that sounds like it's bad even if some of the language we use borders on indefensively, blatantly misleading" approach and the ones I've seen that seem to have not only spoken to someone who can read and understand a set of accounts but also have provided a balanced report including the actual and reasonable (generall, imho) explanations of them are, well this is the painful, the Daily yes-I'm-going-to-say-it Mail and, and I really am having trouble psyching myself up to contemplating typing these words, the usually-none-less-true Daily Express. There, I said it.
So let's be honest, this isn't a storm of people who are generally really concerned with charity governance any more than those people who are really committed to child welfare and fighting child abuse, but only when the perpetrators are brown skinned muslims, or those who abhor all hunting type activities just so long as they are the ones enjoyed by posh people. It's clear from the scattergun concerns that don't even have a coherence.
Their costs were higher than the grants they gave! Yes, why is that a problem? Well, it's obvious, innit? Is it, why, then? Well, it's just wrong, innit? etc...
But they paid themselves loads for consultancy! No, they paid a lot for consultancy, but it was third party.
Well they shouldn't have spent it then! Why not? Well it's a waste of money. They raised a million quid after spending £126k, why is that bad? It just is..
But they paid their own companies! It's explained in the accounts and is mainly money they were owed for charity spend, and £16k dragging the old guy around raising money.
£16k! That's outrageous! Is it, why is it? How much should it be? Not £16K! How much then? £12k? £10k? £6k? I dunno, but not that much! I'm a charity accountant, and I can't tell you a figure off the top of my head or whether £16k is a reasoable amount, a bargain or a total piss take. For one thing I don't know how many days he was on the road or how many events they did, but then I'm not casting around for something to attack them for because I don't like the daughter and want to prove she's on the take.
And that's what it is, it's an attack in search of a justification, hence the scattergun nature and the confusion with people claiming that the daughter's been paid £126k or £27k or anything at all for consultancy. The irony is that, imho, the dodgiest thing in the whole documents is the reserves policy very flimsily asserting that they need to hold a large and very arbitrary looking amount of money for financial commitments that don't appear to exist. I think there is a legitimate question to ask about that, but I'm not hearing it from the "read something I didn't understand on twitter, but it sounded dodgy the way it was described" crowd.
Are the reserves not for amounts they have committed or are working towards passing on to more charities? That’s a question, I have no idea how this stuff works.
@Drac yes, I didn't mean to single you out as a fake newsmonger sorry! - that £27k consultancy thing is specifically the error that seems to have originated with Politics Joe and has been repeated all over the place. I've read it in a number of outlets who should know better. Completely understandable when it's from a source one might consider reliable and I wouldn't have spotted it if this wasn't my trade and I'd read the actual accounts.
I think it was a genuine error but I wish it had been corrected. To be fair, I didn't spot it the first time I read the note in the accounts, but once you do see it, it's totally unambiguous (it's quoted by someone else already on the thread from the accounts note in question so I won't duplicate).
No, I knew you hadn’t just wanted clarification. As always this place comes out with a cracking detailed answer to queries.
@kelvin Good question, and imho their note should answer it, but doesn't. It may well be thinking along those lines but that is a bit 'iffy' as a logic, since what the reserves policy should do is specify the ongoing requirements for the charity, not a specific provision on the balance sheet date.
So they're not saying "as at 31 May 2021 we have agreed to pay out another £0.5m grants, so obviously we need to keep £0.5m on hand for that" it's more "we're saying that, as a general rule, we need to keep £0.5m up our sleeves for, er, you know, stuff" and as a charity with minimal infrastructure, no staff, no long term (> 1 year) financial commitments and making discretionary grants (so they can give as much or as little as they are willing and able to) that, for me, doesn't add up. Worst case if they knew the writing was on the wall as a long term prospect (and the adverse publicity over this won't have helped there) it should be more "okay, what shall we do with the last £0.5m" rather than "we shall just tick along doing nothing but leaving £0.5m in the bank to prolong the life of the charity".
If there any charity finance pro's reading this, apologies I do know that in reality ringfencing funds for long term stuff and general reserves isn't quite the same and we should be talking about designated funds at this point, but I also know enough charity professionals who don't understand general, designated and restricted funds that I'm going to pretend that stuff doesn't exist for the purpose of this conversation.
Interesting posts, thanks for sharing.
Raised £1.1m
Still got £700k
Spent £200k on direct fundraising costs/fees and onward causes (£160k)
And £200k on ‘management’
Just seen this and it isn;t quite right, it's this, roughly:
Income £1,060k (just over a million)
Grants out: £160k
Other spend: £200k
Money left at year end £700k
The £200kish is then mainly the £126k consultancy, I think there's £20k advertising then you're into the bits and pieces, from memory £22k legal fees, £8k audit, £5k website build, £5k office rent, the £16k dragging the old guy around the place. That's £202k isn't it? I think the total in the accounts is £209k so we're very much into "sundries" to reconcile to the total at this point.
Or there's £7k unexplained money missing from the accounts I suppose, for those with an agenda.
“..or a business.” well, no, it doesn’t. By definition. Charities should be run in a business-like way. That is to maximise efficiency, therefore maximising resources that go directly on the “thing” you do. But they can’t become businesses, the requirements are contradictory and incompatible.
I can name at least two locally active third sector organisations that live by targeting grants. Profits and Groundworks
Third sector isn't just charities as you well know
The local food Bank has lost massive credibility due to alleged grifting
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/17772425.complaints-rossendale-food-bank-made-formal/
And if you want to talk about bad behaviour by charities we could go into the whole issue of targeting legacies and taking families to court to make sure you get the money
Explains why there are so many charity adverts on daytime TV and the number of trained staff to make sure the will is legally changed
Charities target grant income to fund their work? Err, yes. Of course. You are going to have to explain what your objection to this approach is please? Asking as someone who works for charities and has applied for loads of them over the years.
The legacy thing is tricky. Trustee duty is to the best interests of the charity's beneficiaries (not necessarily the charity itself, common misconception). If they are entitled to a legacy and don't pursue it, arguably they are failing in their legal responsibilities. It isn't necessarily that simple, for example if doing so would do more harm through reputational damage to the charity than the value gained, but as a general principle if a charity is entitled to some money the starting assumption would be that they have a duty to secure it.
Charities target grant income to fund their work? Err, yes. Of course. You are going to have to explain what your objection to this approach is please?
I'm talking third sector which as you know encompasses far more than just charities. I was very surprised at the scale of it and the lack of tangible outputs. A good example here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sxl
Asking as someone who works for charities and has applied for loads of them over the years.
I guessed that from the first attempt to close down the discussion on this, I say third sector, you say charities.
The legacy thing is tricky.
Well it is if you employ people to ensure you maximise income from them actively targeting the most likely donors. For some charities it's their main source of income.
Again, I hear you objecting to charities raising money but I still don't understand it.
What is your objection to charities applying for grant funding?
What is your objection to charities asking people to leave them money in their wills?
Also, can you expand on the charity / third sector thing, I haven't a clue where you're going with that?
Short of just turning the funds over to the NHS Charity, it’s pretty hard to give away £33mn. The fees are a tiny fraction of the fund (0.5%). Look at your pension fund fees 🤣. As stated here already, who really knows the cost of setting up from scratch a significant charity body. Do they want to give away all assets? Secure an ongoing income? A mixture of the two. What’s the donation charter? The legal fees for this advice will not be small. And why should they be?
Short of just turning the funds over to the NHS Charity, it’s pretty hard to give away £33mn. The fees are a tiny fraction of the fund (0.5%)
The £33m is a different charity and as far as I know did just turn the funds over to the NHS. This discussion is about the foundation who have raised just over £1m, given out 160k and have 209k costs. Might still be fine, but nothing like the number you are quoting. There is also an element of asking where that money has gone rather than how much
Yeah, the 30 odd million to NHS charities is nowt to do with this, and did go straight to them (NHS charities) as described.
Ah ok thanks for clarifying.
Not surprised to discover this. I remember listening to the occasional interview with (Tom) on the radio and feeling very uncomfortable. His daughter was incredibly controlling during the process, seizing the phone back off him half way through his answers as if worried about what he might say.
Discover what?
Discover what?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-60319650^^ this. Have you even read the last few posts?
Have you even read the last few posts?
Yes. It has nothing to do with the initial charity, there were setting up cost for the new charity, they still have £600k of £1m raised waiting to be issued.
they still have £600k of £1m raised waiting to be issued.
Or to be given to consultants 😈
Tongue in cheek, but we don't know yet. Just looking at the published figures the skew isn't great. Hopefully they were high setting up costs and that money will be mostly distributed to charities and good causes.
£700k left, I posted a summary of the headline flows and closing balance somewhere on the last page.
Not surprised to discover this. I remember listening to the occasional interview with (Tom) on the radio and feeling very uncomfortable. His daughter was incredibly controlling during the process, seizing the phone back off him half way through his answers as if worried about what he might say.
I think we should just let the process flow through if there are real issues they will be exposed, if it's just "normal" for the sector well people who work in the sector need to pay their mortgages, I can easily understand that she might have protective of her Dad if he was prone to say things that might trigger people as some older folk don't have a filter and have social attitudes that have dated.
I found the whole adulation thing a bit off putting although it wasn't his fault, he just rode the wave as anyone would raising cash as he went
Ooops! Yes £700k
Didn't even notice that was you. Sorry Drac, please don't think you're being stalked by a personal fact checker.
Hahaha! No, prefer it if I’ve got it wrong and corrected.
Wel said @edlong . It is good that they are saying they are open to working with the CC. The level of reserves looks high, or rather there isn't an obvious reason why it should be at that level. I'm a trustee of a charity and the reseres are about 10% of that level, to cover 6 months of run down costs for staff and lease, factorng in any other obligations. It's all very individual to each charity and needs to be constantly revisited.
If the charity has had a large lump sum fund raise, then it is hard to see how reserves of £500k are in any way sustainable. Hopefully the CC will be helping them here, but they do already have a decent firm of accountants and lawyer to help them.
There is a focus in the accounts on ensuring they have trustees with the right expertise, but it seems only passing reference to the need to find a CEO and head of fund raising. The CEO should be the key person they need to run the charity correctly, with the trustees ensuring the CEO is doing their job and the charity is achieving is objectives - the trustees aren't there to run the charity in a executive capacity. If they have a CEO and a fund raising person, they could see a real pressure to raise significant funds to justify that approach and cost. It is potentially a challenging situation for the trustees - do they take the view that it was largely a one-off and decide to distribute the funds for maximum impact, or do they think they can annnual raise substantial funds when we move further and further away from Covid and memories of Sir Tom walking around the garden.
Maytrix Group seems to be doing fairly well and I assume is sub letting part of its office to the charity (but who to if there are no employees?). I think it would look better if Matrix simply let the charity use the space, especially if it is surplus. Charging £9k pa rent doesn't looks so good from a perception perspective. The same applies to recharging mileage costs from the charity I think.
Having Matryx pay some relatively small costs, or let it use space it isn't using for free, would have looked much better than it does here.
I'm fairly sure the rent payments aren't ultimately to Maytrix, they are just through it. From the accounts:
"These costs [the office rent and a load of other stuff] were initially funded by Maytrix.. on behalf of the charitable company, and reimbursed when sufficient funds were available."
If they were actually renting an office from the firm that would be disclosed as such, including, I think, reference to whether it was at market rates, or something different. If it was discounted that would also be disclosed e.g. if fair market rent was 20k but they agreed to charge 10k because charity, then the charity should report the value of the £10k "benefit in kind" received as well as the actual transaction being in the related parties note.
EDIT: I strongly disagree that there is any issue or criticism for reclaiming expenses, including mileage.