Hannah Ingram Moore. AIBU Not To Be Surprised At Charity Commission Findings?

£38m could have built a hospital ward but the cash went on dribs and drabs like fruit baskets for nurses and snack stands for other NHS staff.
That’s charity spending for you - a worse scandal than anything his daughter could have done.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the initial fundraising was for, which is part of the problem.

What gets me is, her and her husband show no shame whatsoever. They say they have been treated unfairly and and unjustly, their names have been tarnished etc etc
Thank goodness they are banned from holding any charity position for 10 years because something tells me they would do it all again if they got the chance

it was given to NHS charities together who have a grant process organised around themes. The process for applying is online. It’s got an oversight by the trustees and actually some of the meeting documents can be found online.

then they report on how the money has been spent in their annual report, here’s one.

https://nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/NHS_Charities_AR_2022_AW1.pdf

On page 10 onwards there’s a breakdown of the grant areas, region and then hospitals. So hospital trusts (themselves charities often) will have applied for specific things, maybe “joy to the wards” is what they applied for (as assume that’s what gift baskets come under) but you’ll see it’s actually a tiny proportion of the overall grants.

And NHS charities together isn’t for building of new hospitals, it’s to strengthen the existing network. So even if they wanted to build another hospital for £38m they can’t. Because it’s a membership so using all that would mean it’s not fair on other members.

you don’t understand charity spending but sure tell everyone it’s wasted. When actually it’s probably more open to public scrutiny than water companies and plenty of other examples.

Why are the CC making it seem like a £85,000 salary was extraordinary?

I think the problem here is that people are having problems disentangling the initial fundraising efforts for NHS Charities and the Foundation. The initial £38 million never passed through their bank accounts, it was donated straight into the NHS bank accounts and managed by the NHS.

They then set up a Foundation to sell the book and other merch which was much smaller. Yes if you're running a huge charity like Save the Children or Cancer Research you can command a 6-figure salary. Not so much for this size of small charity.

YY to the above.

There was such a weird febrile atmosphere at the time. If you tried to question anything, you were "mean" or not approaching things with the right spirit. This kind of thing does not help when it comes to ensuring accountability.

Totally agree. I do hope people who let themselves get whipped up into a frenzy have reflected on how susceptible they were to manipulation.

There was so much madness around at that time. People criticising anyone who didn't stand on the doorstep and clap. People timing their neighbours walks or scrutinising how many visitors they had or what they put in their shopping trolley.

It was horrible to watch.

People on Mumsnet were shouted down if they dared to suggest any unease about Hannah Ingram Moore.

Are you for real?

This is exactly it.

Every time there is s thread about charity shops or other charity efforts people are desperate to pile in with their ideas about over-inflated salaries, volunteers stealing stock in charity shops, pigs with snouts in the trough and how small charities are so much better. Because of actions of people like this woman and her husband who were wholly unsuited for running in a charity in the first place.

It's probably worth pointing out though that the Charity Commission found out what was going on, and stopped it. That is their JOB. The charity sector has so much more oversight than other sectors which is why we know all the ins and outs of what was raised and how it was spent. Also, this was in the grand scheme of things a small charity, large charities have bigger boards and more oversight than this one, which was run by a couple, and a third trustee.

The Moores saw their chance for a feel-good story at the start of the pandemic, the old guy's daughter was skilled in PR and once the BBC was on board with the updates it just went crazy. Will never forgive Michael Ball for the record though.

The huge sum of money has largely been wasted. £38m could have built a hospital ward but the cash went on dribs and drabs like fruit baskets for nurses and snack stands for other NHS staff.

That’s charity spending for you - a worse scandal than anything his daughter could have done.

I think we need to be careful to clarify. The money people donated to the NHS did go to the NHS.

I don't know why people are still chuntering on about "destroying his legacy"

The "captain Tom Moore" people think they know was nothing more than a media creation by Hannah Ingram Moore.

Not at all surprised and so frustrated. Things like this undermine public trust in charities, the vast majority of which know and are sticking to the regulations. Every time I hear someone complain about CEO salaries or that small local charities are inherently better I eyeroll as running a charity is complex. You have to spend a decent amount of time and yes money on admin as it’s crucial to have decent oversight. I’ve worked in charities for twenty years and also a trustee and there’s so many passionate and dedicated people getting paid far less than they could get in commercial sector, not to mention thousands on volunteers who give time willingly and then along comes grifters like this. They are still maintaining they did nothing wrong,

The conflict of interest was clear. And that’s why the report is so damning. It beggars belief they didn’t even donate from book sales despite being asked by the charity commission. You cannot sell something to the public saying that proceeds will be donated and then not. So frustrating. No wonder people thing money doesn’t get to where it needs to go, when actually it does, because of high profile corruption like this.

Exactly this.

And many small charities are run almost entirely by volunteers.

Trustees in all these big charities get huge salaries.

Not so. Staff (inc CEOs) may do. But trustees are, by law, unpaid volunteers for their trustee role except in very exceptional circumstances, which require permission from the Charity Commission.

The issue you with the £18k was that she was acting in the role of the CEO of the charity.
I work for a charity I also do some freelance work. Any work I'm doing in the name of the charity and because of my role there I do under my charity wage. I don't profit from that charity personally. If my charity was asked to attend something and be paid for it that money would go to the charity not to the person carrying out the work.

I also blame the BBC. It is laughable how they are reporting it this morning when during covid every single morning literally, they were in his back garden. It was shoved down our throats from day one

This from an article is shocking. Twice the charity commission asked her to donate some funds from his books to the charity, and TWICE she refused.

Me and my DCs felt uneasy about it all but we wouldn't dare say anything to anyone. I think I said something on here and was shot down.

DysonSphere... With all due respect, the charity commission would not be damning them like this if they had acted in a moral and fair way. They weren't. They were making money off the back of the British public. The salary ..she was pushing for £150k. The demolition was totally necessary, they were trying to pretend it was a service to the people where they lived, and they only tried that one when they were being questioned about it being built.

Grabby, soulless ghouls they are. They accepted a book advance in April 2020!! They must have had pound signs in their eyes as her old dad shuffled around his driveway.

However I think some of the blame has to be laid at everyone who completely lost their minds during the whole “Blitz spirit of COVID, keep calm and carry on” nonsense. It was a tremendous over reaction and many of us thought so at the time. I remember how mad people were going for Tom and I thought it’s just an old bloke who caught someone’s attention, but people were deifying him at ridiculous levels. I remember thinking “do people equate a WW2 veteran with themselves having to heroically stay indoors for a bit, is that why he’s so popular?”. Penguin sensed there was enough hysteria from the very start to warrant three books, because people who aren’t especially bright are whipped up into a frenzy over what is actually a fairly pedestrian story. People who enable these ridiculous fads about humans maybe wanna have a word with themselves. They overly worshipped an ordinary man and his family reaped the glory and then some.

Biggest grift going. I bet all those mugs who donated feel like absolute tits 😂

I feel fairly neutral about it.

Undoubtedly it was probably Sir Tom's daughter who got the media involved at the very beginning. Without that, there would have been little attention given to his efforts and all that money would never have been donated and raised for the NHS. He would have been a nice old man walking in his garden with not a great deal of reach. Sir Tom's family had probably been managing everything in the background all along and 38 million is a load of money. They never touched that money.

I feel it's not moral, but I can't be asked to be upset over them getting some personal cash on the side since then. Trustees in all these big charities get huge salaries. Why are the CC making it seem like a £85,000 salary was extraordinary?

I also don't see why there was such a fuss about the £18,000 payment by Virgin O2 being personally pocketed. There doesn't seem to have been anything strictly stipulating that it must go to the charity.

I feel the SPA and home cinema was wrong, but demolition was unnecessary.

I feel these people are shifty, but they have done good too. Unless someone is saying that the big mainstream charities never spend funds on superfluous things (Travel? Eating out in expensive restaurants? Conferences in expensive locations etc etc) and there aren't people on big salaries working in them, then to me they are perhaps correct to say they have received extraordinary scrutiny.