Save the Children launches appeal for children in the UK

[Vagaceratops]

BBC link

And it will get worse :(

If the dc are going hungry because the parents are making unwise choices then giving the parents more money isn't the solution. Surely in those cases child protection services should be called in to investigate neglect. Working for NHS I have seen parents plead they could not afford nappies/ formula for when their dc were behind discharged when they were given supplies we subsequently found they had sold them to pay for drink/ fags/ drugs

"Since there is an explanation for everything, there is an explanation for Save the Children?s announcement: but as we shall see, saving the children has nothing to do with it. The explanation has more to do with the moral, financial and political corruption of our charity sector, in which employment grew by 19 per cent between 2001 and 2010, while employment in the private sector fell by 4 per cent."

This is what I've been saying! Charities are not all they make out to be...are they really in it to 'save the children'? Someone's getting rich out of it, and it's not the children.

"But what of Save the Children? The first thing to say about it is that, like so many charities in Britain today, it is not a charity, at least not in the normal sense of the word. It is part of the charitable-bureaucratic complex that is to modern Britain what the military-industrial complex was to Eisenhower?s America. Like most bureaucracies, it is there to serve itself.

It spent £88 million on humanitarian assistance in 2009 and £58 million on staff wages (it was far from the worst in this respect: the Child Poverty Action Group spent £1,551,000 of its income of £1,990,000 on wages). In 2009, its chief executive was paid £137,608 which, while not vast by the standards of commercial chief executives, was more than six times the median British wage at the time. This is certainly not what individual donors might think or hope their money is spent on; and it is certainly not what I think charity is. Fourteen of its staff earned more than £60,000, and 150 between £30,000 and £40,000. The ?charity? operated a fixed-benefit pension scheme. Its charity clearly began at home."

£58 million on staff wages - how is that charity??? So many deluded people in the UK giving to these 'charities', it makes you sick.

What's wrong with charities paying their staff? They're large organisations that need managing in order to deliver their charitable aims.

I assume the income from gov't is because it's part of gov't overseas aid spending, delivered through a channel which means it can reach beneficiaries efficiently.

Blame america and thatcher for selfishness, greed and the me, me, me culture.

We have leaned long ago that the self centred, harsh excell in business and become rich while those who give are considered weak.

It's part and parcel of the capitalist system, it encourages it, the more we try to be like america the worse it gets.

We are encouraging ruthless capitalism while at the same time hanging on to a few socialist hang overs in order to subsidies the workers, so the employers can keep all the money, slowly they chip away spreading lies and deceit about claiments so they can slowly turn us completely American, with the i'm alright jacks not giving a shit about those working 40 hour weeks but still having to sleep in the car and shamelessly leaving the sick to seek treatment from charities.

Its all been planned to lower our standards of living and reduce the poor to nothing but worker units, seems to be working too with the number of idiots on here saying your not poor until your kids living under an empty crisp wrapper licking exhaust pipes for sustenance.

Oh and where are the statistics for the number of unpaid workers they have, you can't sstaff a charity completely voluntarily, people who work full time need to eat tho i don't think anyone should be getting more then 60k if it's good enough for politicians it's good enough for managing directors and chairs of board.

Fair enough, some of the charity staff need paying, but really, ridiculous salaries such as stated above?!? Come on, surely those who are working in these charities who genuinely cared, would take a cut so that the money is driven straight into those who need it the very most! It's all about going back the basics of charity work.

I will be working with a charity next year where none of the volunteers/helpers receive a penny of the fundraising money so that all that is raised goes straight into the pot in helping the children. No one complains about it because they just want to help these children as much as possible. Clothes are bought with the money raised, food, medicines, etc. You can see the difference it makes with your own eyes. No need to read a report about it from a third source, you can witness the changing lives in front of you.

SunWukong speaks a lot of sense.

I don't have a fucking clue about the management of charities, considering there size they must be comparible to some of the top FTSE companies, and if they and bankers can and do argue that you must pay sky high wages to get the best people for the job and the public except that largely.

Then why shouldn't the case be the same for charities?, we may not like it but it would just be the case of needs must, we just don't know.

Personally I'm of the opinion that if i give them a pound and 50p of that is spent on logistics of getting it to the people, at least I've just given 50p to the people, where as all the govenment do with our so called aid money is chuck it in the bank accounts of dictators and governments.

I'm still trying to read ill the past posts on this thread, i'm finding it laughable that people earning 41k a year are moaning that they finding it hard with 700pcm rent and 140 tax bills are they having a laugh? Telling others they are reckless with cash and need to budget, look in the mirror.

We all 3 of us live in London 800pcm for a 1 bed flat, .bf gets 24k a year near 20k after tax i get 30 quid a week in cb and tax credits, I'm talking to you now via my lovely new tablet pc, you people earning 40k moaning about money and telling others how they should live on less need to be careful throwing all those rocks around your get a showerof glass on your heads one of these days.

40k goes nowhere in London particularly if you have a mortgage, council tax to pay, teenage kids.

the utilities keep going up and up. food has inflated.

house needs upkeep, things break (not necessarily me but others in this situation.

i don't want any kids going hungry but i lose patience with people who are stupid with money and can't manage and spend it on the wrong things.

they would rather buy designer stuff than feed their kids properly on limited means.

Here the same as u SunWukong. We live in London bf gets around 19k after tax. 3 with a 4th on the way live in a 1bed. 700 rent, 160 house bills, then phones, food etc. We get no tax credits and 30 a week cb.
I sometimes work in a events agency for extra money but even if i didn't we would be ok, is not always easy but we can manage.
We couldnt afford childcare so we work shifts and "swap" DD on the train station.
Now with the new baby coming BF started cycling to work (one hour each way) to save 33£ a week.

Ppl just need to learn how to manage the money they have and live according.
Parents shouldn't be given more money, make school lunches free for all, better food and clothes banks and free cooking and budgeting courses.

Don't you tell me that 40k goes nowhere in London I've lived here all my life, just because you have unrealistic expectiations wanting to own a home or something, doesn't mean it is a low wage, the avarage is 22k s year and there are a hell of a lot of people getting by on less then that.

Which is the whole point of the report, do you really think the majority of working people in London get over 40k a year? Home ownership is a luxury, far more so then cars, mobile phones and internet, mortgages just part of the capitalist dream to lull you into a false sense of security and debt.

Governments and banks love debts they love to trap us all into paying interest, only problem is when it all goes to far and we can't pay anymore.

40 years ago you could buy a place in chiswick for 30k and mortgages where virtually unheard of, no coincidence is it that prices are now sky high.

I wouldn't say everyone just needs to live within their means, as the food banks say the majority who walk in the door do so because they live on the line with no savings and somethings come up, benefits stopped, large bill, illness etc, the whole system is very slow and prone to fuck ups.

I spent 4 months with no tax credits because they are useless idiots who fucked up, spent 6 weeks without jsa money when i finished new deal once because they fucked up, all very well and good if you have someone to support you but many don't.

Would help if we didn't get fleeced left right and centre and told we are no one without particular things but again that's going back to the capitalist system again, we don't make anything yo sell so our whole economy is based on getting people to buy stuff and got in debt.

If we all turned round and shoved all our cash under the bed for a rainy day, the whole country will be completely buggered, so we are endlessly told that the rainy day will never come things can only get better but to do so you must buy expensive makeup, a new suit, get your hair done etc or you will never get anywhere. The state will help if you really need it.

Then when the rainy day comes you find the state doesn't offer all the things you where led to believe, you end up in debt paying out your benefits cash in interest.

Wining situration for the rich, they still get their cake and eat it, while the poor scrabble about subbing each other and themselves.

Sun wokong -dont know why you choose to highlight me out of 539posts and dont think you read mine in detail you just saw the 41k gross and assumed we loaded, waste our money and have loads of gadgets.

obviously rent 700, council tax around 140 and ultilities on top is well over £1000.

not sure how much 41k is net pa but monthly its around £2200 a month.

but we of course have other expenses.

food
phone
child maintainance for hubbys son-hes no feckless father running off.
we have 3kids of our own, childcare is expensive here, no family near by hubby works 50hours a week unsociable hours as retail.
car
loan-not through luxury items through car breakdowns and appliances.

i cook mostly from scratch
shop at cheaper places like lidls/farmfoods.
mend broken things
shop for everyones clothes in supermarket, charitry shop, ebay, carboots, nearly new sales.
breastfeed youngest and use cloth
I dont smoke
dont drink much.
dont own a tablet computer.
rarly go out and buy stuff for ourselves.

we get cb but no tax credits and will probably lose that next year.

then im guess next year food , ultilities still be going up
petrol will still be high
rent-private will be increased

we havent been abroad since eldest was born so 2005 was last time we had package holiday.

we do manage our money carefully to ensure living standards dont fall too uch and we have no defecit as theres more going out than coming in.

we get by we manage as people say we cut our cloth accordingly.

its people who get loads of assistance and waste the money and their kids live in poverty Im fed up with,

I think in the UK if you have a family living on wage of £20k in London and another living on £20k you can find not a fuge difference because the £20k famiky probably get tax credits and some help with housing costs. I am not sure of the precise figues but in a sense people are incentivised to work fewer hours and earn less so that the state makes their income up to what it would be if they were toiling night and day.

I certainly remember when we were first married when the child care was more than 50% of each of our salaries, all children's clothes second hand and people were used to living on lot fewer "essentials" than they think they hneed today (and mortgage interest rates were nearer 8 - 12% in that period than the lower levels today and rented property was virtually impossible to find as all tenants until shortholds came in could stay forever so not surprisingly on one wanted to let to them.

Sun wokong no one would give us a council house anyway as we wouldn't have fitted the criteria so it made sense to buy a home. why wouldn't you. our mortgage is cheaper than peoples rents and renting is money down the drain if you can manage to buy

we really struggled to start with and my DH always just earned slightly over the threshold for any assistance and we had no money in the 90's. my inlaws used to give us some to help out with our mortgage

but living in london is expensive.

how old is your child? you say there is only 3 of you.

I agree Mam, some people can't budget and as a result their kids are in poverty. plus they don't bother to try at school so they have no earning power. they are usually the disruptive kids who ruin it for everyone else but somehow they are always experts at reproducing at an early age.

it probably sounds cliched and i know everyone is different.

i have worked in secondary and seen all sorts of kids and sometimes what happens when they leave school so i do have an idea.

Xenia And then people think I am prepared to take this hand out for a year but after that I will get a job and if there isn't one here in Hull I will go to London or Australia to look for work.

I really cannot bring myself to read any more of your posts after that particular bit of nonsense. LGo to London? Rent deposits, high housing costs - presumably all funded by the savings you accumulated while living on JSA. Go to Australia looking for work? Erm, visas, airfares...? You make it all sound like a weakness of will/effort if people can't do these things.

Get real.

I know people who moved to London for work who weren't rich. Also if immigrants can manage it surely Liverpudlians can? Youcan sleep in a tent until you get sorted out. There are plenty of ways to manage things. You sleep on a floor or a friend's sofa until you save enough for your deposit or you find jobs with housing like live in nanny. There are loads of ways to do things but too many women think only of problems not solutions.

Do you really think people on benefits get 41k a year, and as for childcare think yourself lucky that it's actually worth paying for at your pay level, as i said before i stopped working to look after my son as it's simply cheaper, daily childcare in London is £5+ more a day then what i got paid a day, it was obvious that working would leave me at least 25 pound less well off then doing nothing and that's not counting travel costs.

We have a flat, we have gas, water, electric, phone, internet, tv licence and home content insurance. .bf has a contract mobile phone because it is required by work, he has a folding bike for going to work and we hardly ever use public transport we walk, London's not that big takes an hour and a half to walk to central London, i wouldn't ever say i was struggling, i live a sensible so i can save for nice things.

I've not been on holiday since 2004 and that was the only holiday I've ever been on, 4 days in nice, why do you think holidays are something normal and to be expected? Never expected a holiday when i was a kid, holiday was a day trip to the seaside.

Never been to hair dressers or had my legs waxed, nails done etc, but still many sseem to think that's not a luxury.

No, but my own family if we were on state benefits we would get £18,000 just on housing alone!! I was amazed at the massive figures. We wouldn't have to cram into a one bed flat we would be housed like kings by tax payers if I chose not to work. It is an amazingly high figure. Then add on other benefits and it soon mounts up. Whereas the family with one earner on 40k takes home just under £30k of that in tax - 29773. I think they may need to be a little more to get no tax credits.

Someone earning £20k full time takes home £16,113 which is £13600 less but my argument is that the state might give the £20k person additional benefits which may mean they are not in too different a position from the £40k a year gross earner.

24k before tax equals just over 20k after tax, tax credits are calculated before tax, .tc for couple with one child cut off point is 25k, the result is get 39 pounds a month in tax credits, that's about a tenner a week hardly a fortune.

You can't sign on to get jsa if you have a child under, you can't get income support if your partner or others in your household earn over 13k once again calculated before tax.

I was priority d on the housing list and that was when we where in a studio flat, now we are in a 1 bed we are not eligible no point trying at all.

How's someone from Liverpool spost to sofa surf in London if they have just moved down here for work? Where did all these mythical friends with rooms to spare come from?.

Honestly instead of spouting crap on here full of hearsay and maybes about what people are entitled too hey don't you go look it up.

Child under 7

If I chose not to work we get £18k housing benefit for a start plus other benefits. That point isn't wrong.

If I am wrong the the squeezed middle on one £42k wage are not that much better off than a family on £20k then that's great. I want people to feel yes I'll work full time, not stay at home and serve men as a housewife. We need it to be very much worth people's while to make that change from £20k a year to £40k rather than find they would be not much better off. I am delighted if I'm wrong. I have slightly lost the point of what we are debating.

Obviously working for £20k a year is going to see you no better than if you did no work at all which is a shame. If I get £18k a year housing benefit if I choose not to work plus other benefits nad if I worked I could only get £20k a year there is no point in working unless I feel I might get promotion later.