Shameless labour

nickmason

StevieJ wrote: »

I think it a cue for Nick Mason to pop in

Hello.

All charities are voluntary organisations, as the people that govern the charity are volunteers - although this is at risk at the moment; chairs and trustees are starting to become professionalised. (somewhat akin to non-exec directors in the commercial world).

The charity might be incorporated (ie a company), or unincorporated (a trust); and then it gets more complicated still with charities under royal charter, friendly societies and all sorts of oddities.

Best description I heard was that a charity is a "cuckoo" - it can live in a number of legal structures, but that it needs to satisfy the public benefit test. These were considerably redrafted in the 2006 Charity Bill, but the argument continues to rage over whether improving education by providing private education is a public benefit or not, to the huge disappointment of most of the government at the time.

Most charities don't have any employees, mainly because they're private. (There are something like 1/4Million charities in the UK).

However the vast majority of what people think of as charities are commercial enterprises; for instance the RNIB - for whom I work - spend c£165M pa. The majority of that is on staff. The difference is that we don't get share options as employees, or shares as "founders" - all the "equity" lies with the cause, as defined in our charitable objectives. Nor do we typically get the income of the private sector nor the gold-plated pensions of the public sector.

What we do get to do pretty well is respond to need - typically faster than the government. Or explain what they're doing wrong.

nickmason

StevieJ wrote: »

I think it a cue for Nick Mason to pop in

Unless the cue was the jibe about the Big Society. In which case, I think you just don't get it yet. The idea is that it's people, not structures and organisations and strategies and policies and consultations and initiatives and investments (three times over), that will make the difference.

Economically - it's a coordination/adverse selection problem - why bother to do it if the government'll do it for you.

Morally - whether you're religious or not (and I'm not), it's a deep-rooted idea that we look out for those around us. Good Samaritan and all that.

So yes, the Big Society looks daft from the perspective of "oh, it's someone else's job". Especially when you've been led to believe that someone else will pay for that someone else to do that job.

But once you move away from that starting point - then it starts to make sense. There are still problems of how the Big Society idea gets more traction in wealthier areas, so we need, at least in the medium term, to increase the redistribution/subsidy of wealth from the richer to the poorer. Nobody said it would be easy and painless - if that were the case, then even the last goverment would probably have adopted it as the path of least resistance.

Communities do this work a whole lot better and more efficiently than the state does. If they're given half the chance.

Rochdale_Pioneers

nickmason wrote: »

Communities do this work a whole lot better and more efficiently than the state does. If they're given half the chance.

Or - as millions of disabled, poor, jobless and vulnerable people are about to find out - they don't. We'd be more convinced about the big society idea if it didn't go hand in hand with the immediate dismantling of support services for people.

Should Cameron have come straight and told that mother of a disabled daughter in need of respite care (the one he promised to help then did the opposite) that under the big society her neighbours and family should be doing it?

shortchanged_2

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Has anyone pointed out to Osborne that a recession will increase the deficit?

Probably but he was more likely thinking where he could get his next fix of Pimms.

TheMoneySpider

Graham_Devon wrote: »

In essence, whats the difference. Nothing. It's all just desperatism.

It's an economic stimulus. The first thing the government did when it came in was to shleve things like Building Schools for the Future. Breaking countless promises and contracts and throwing the building trade into crisis.

If you give me a choice between John Maynard Keynes or George Gideon Osborne I know who I'd side with.

StevieJ

nickmason wrote: »

Unless the cue was the jibe about the Big Society. In which case, I think you just don't get it yet. The idea is that it's people, not structures and organisations and strategies and policies and consultations and initiatives and investments (three times over), that will make the difference.
.

I get it alright;) but it wasn't a jibe, it was calling on your expertise in explaining how charities are structured. There was a comment of, something like 'how can you have redundancies at voluntary organisations'?

nickmason

StevieJ wrote: »

I get it alright;) but it wasn't a jibe, it was calling on your expertise in explaining how charities are structured. There was a comment of, something like 'how can you have redundancies at voluntary organisations'?

Hi Stevie - good, that's why I answered the charity structure question first! But you know, I'm a sensitive soul...and moreover won't miss the chance to explain what the Big Society premise is.;)

nickmason

TheMoneySpider wrote: »

It's an economic stimulus. The first thing the government did when it came in was to shleve things like Building Schools for the Future. Breaking countless promises and contracts and throwing the building trade into crisis.

If you give me a choice between John Maynard Keynes or George Gideon Osborne I know who I'd side with.

I think the building trade was in crisis before the 2010 election.

abaxas

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Or - as millions of disabled, poor, jobless and vulnerable people are about to find out - they don't. We'd be more convinced about the big society idea if it didn't go hand in hand with the immediate dismantling of support services for people.

Should Cameron have come straight and told that mother of a disabled daughter in need of respite care (the one he promised to help then did the opposite) that under the big society her neighbours and family should be doing it?

Or as the millions of lazy, pretending to be disabled, jobless slackers are about to find out.

StevieJ

abaxas wrote: »

Or as the millions of lazy, pretending to be disabled, jobless slackers are about to find out.

I don't think you are real, more like a caricature