Now and again something crops up that normally would be outside of the remit of Freedom2Choose, in this case it is the Kids Company scandal. Most smokers have children and contrary to the belief of ASH and the Department of Social Services they love their children as much as any other parents do, some are willing to love children who are not their own too but are denied permission to help children in need of good homes by DSS because they choose to smoke, while at the same they protest that there are not sufficient parents willing to foster.
That aside the Charity Kids Company, a government paid charity (just like ASH) are in trouble due to allegations of child abuse. As a result HMG rightly stopped the KIds Company’s funding while Scotland Yard conduct their investigation.
In response to this scandal a petition has been launched to end government funding for all charities, as seen below:
Petitions: End government Funding for All Charities (Petition Now Closed)
Petition End government funding for all charities.
A “charity” which receives taxpayer funding is simply not a charity. In light of the Kids Company scandal it is fair to say that a symbiotic relationship between gov. and charities is unhelpful and inappropriate. Taxpayer funding turns charities into unaccountable Quangos. This is morally wrong.
Freedom2Choose would like you to consider supporting this petition, why you ask, would we want to deny all charities government funding?
It is not because we are anti charity, far from it, as an organization we contributed to a charity which sent D-day veterans back to Normandy so that they may pay their respects to fallen comrades, it was the right thing to do, after all they fought so hard for our freedom and lost many brave friends doing so. Taxpayers are forced to make contributions to charities that in the normal course of events they would not choose to donate to, an inappropriate use of taxpayers money.
Nor is that the only reason, Government funding of charities makes them quangos, as a direct result they are immune from Freedom of Information requests, in other words you cannot find out what they spend your tax money on! This is morally wrong.
Any organization which has “charitable purposes” in law (which are strictly defined legally and not always the same as what are commonly understood as “philanthropic”) and an income of £5,000 or more a year, currently has a duty to register as a charity.
There also has to be demonstrable public benefit.
There are some charities that claim to work for the public good, I ask you is it for the public good that a charity was responsible for and played an active role in forming legislation that has put thousands of single mothers with their dependent child(ren) on to the dole queue because their legislation destroyed the livelihood of their pub landlord employer? Or Pensioners became prisoners in their own homes because the places where they socialized cannot allow them to smoke and as a consequence closed adding more people to the already overstretched dole queues. How about inmates in mental hospitals who self medicate with tobacco to relieve their stress in their everyday lives? Some Psychiatrists believe that forced abstinence does more harm than good to these unfortunate human beings.
The Trustees of a charity have a legal duty to ensure that it sticks to its purposes, refrains from political activity, that its financial affairs are conducted transparently and prudently, and that it reports truthfully and promptly on its activities to the Charity Commission.
As stated above some charities have become politically active, they formulate legislation, advise committees while being paid by the taxpayer, a violation of the rule that says a charity should refrain from political activity.
This is wrong, it needs to be stopped, you can help stop it and see your tax money used appropriately by signing this petition, as the anti-smoking lobby keep reminding us “It’s for the children” in this instance, by signing it would truly be, in part, for the children.