Supplying you own charity.

ntb1

I've come across a charity that is offering services that require some very expensive kit (250,000 each I believe).

Is it legal or moral that the company that will be supplying the specialist kit is owned/run by the two men behind the charity.

If they manage to raise the money to supply all these kits they are after we are talking 10s of millions it will make them quite well off. The guys behind it aren't hiding the fact they own the company though they aren't publishing it either.

Any ideas.

paddyrg

As far as I know, it stinks but is legal and not uncommon. There is a certain high-profile services charity (think of a charity who raise a lot of money with great campaigns but are very oblique about how they actually spend it...got a name in your mind?) who build a lot of buildings with the money they raise - built by the company owned by the wife of the charity director.

ntb1

I was guessing that it must be legal if not moral as if you google the people they come up on LinkedIn etc as directors of the supplier.

It's an interesting article will try to post on here at some point.

ntb1

http://www.sarworld.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=301 here's a link to a discussion about this charity.

antrobus

ntb1 wrote: »

http://www.sarworld.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=301 here's a link to a discussion about this charity.

Also mentioned in the latest issue of Private Eye (no 1325) under the headline ' Robot !!!!!s'. To the uninitiated, there is a US company that makes underwater robots that can rescue people from drowning, and the company that distributes these robots in the UK have (essentially) set up a charity to fund the purchase of said robots.

real1314

There should be clear declarations of interest from those within the charity who also have a conflict of interest through the supplying company.

Also the aims seems a little at odds with even their own exaggerated statistics - they aim to rescue "thousands", but of say 500-600 deaths in water per annum (blending RoSPA figures with this "charity's") a significant percentage will have been unsuitable for this approach - e.g 10% at home, 15% murders, 7% in cars, 7% natural causes near water.

These take out 40%, so we are left with 300-360 incidents. Some of these will be too far away for SAR to help, some will be in unsuitable conditions etc.

£0.5 billion is their aim for spending, which would most likely reduce donations to other charities to some degree.

Would it be money well spent or would RNLI spending actually save more lives?

CKhalvashi

I supply a large charity that I'm a director on, although it counts as a public body in essence, which would mean that it's gone through OJEU procedures for us to be able to fund!

CK

ntb1

What's OJEU?

It just seems wrong.

antrobus

ntb1 wrote: »

What's OJEU?

....

OJEU = Official Journal of the European Union - which is where details of all public tenders are published and so there's a whole bunch of public procurement rules linked to responding to such tenders

antrobus

real1314 wrote: »

...
Also the aims seems a little at odds with even their own exaggerated statistics - they aim to rescue "thousands", but of say 500-600 deaths in water per annum (blending RoSPA figures with this "charity's") a significant percentage will have been unsuitable for this approach - e.g 10% at home, 15% murders, 7% in cars, 7% natural causes near water....

That's exactly the point made by Private Eye. There's a RoSPA study that shows 435 deaths by drowning each year; 38 drowned in the bath, 61 were murdered, 28 were trapped in their cars, etc, so the actual number of accidental drownings that could have been prevented by the presence of a nearby robot (and it would have to be pretty nearby to be any use) would be quite small. Given that you could achieve the same result by the relatively low-tech solution of employing men in boats, it would seem that the primary objective is to make money by finding buyers for the robots rather than actually saving lives.

ntb1

antrobus wrote: »

OJEU = Official Journal of the European Union - which is where details of all public tenders are published and so there's a whole bunch of public procurement rules linked to responding to such tenders

Thanks.

And on the note of the amount of rescues you've already got a very good national charity near most major water RNLI. Before you even think of all the Fire and other rescues set up for water like the Mountain Rescue.