Taxpayers' Alliance: 327 public bodies paying Stonewall over £1 million each year

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.taxpayersalliance.com/327_public_bodies_paying_stonewall_over_1_million_each_year

(Has also been picked up by various media)

A TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) investigation has found a total of 327 public bodies were paying into Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, this saw Stonewall receive over £3 million of taxpayers’ money.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance is calling for an end to the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying, so public money is not used to distort political decision making by advancing policy positions taxpayers may seriously disagree with.

I've not read the report yet, but that's a couple of excerpts from the media summary.

How much good could have been done with that money?

Is anyone wondering what's happened to Stonewall's latest accounts?

Their financial year ends in September, which means their report and accounts was due to the Charity Commission by 31 July - but their September 2020 accounts are not yet on the Commission's website (and Stonewall's website is still only showing the Sept 2019 accounts).

Comment by the political direccot of the TPA in the Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bb13c78c-f865-11eb-8f01-2c678acbb979?shareToken=e14c6443567fd4b679e7019256abafa9

So pleased to see the TPA picking this up. That's an awful lot of money going towards lobbying that seriously disadvantages half the population!

@DadDadDad

Is anyone wondering what's happened to Stonewall's latest accounts?

Their financial year ends in September, which means their report and accounts was due to the Charity Commission by 31 July - but their September 2020 accounts are not yet on the Commission's website (and Stonewall's website is still only showing the Sept 2019 accounts).

Oh that's interesting. I hadn't realised they were overdue.

They may be handing over £1 million cash but that is not the half of it. The money spent on employing people to fill in their forms or to enable employees to attend their training courses (leaving aside for the moment the content of those courses) must equal far more than that. It would interesting if someone could work out what this amounted to.

From the Times article:

"This sort of waste does not have to happen. There are strict equality laws in place. Responsible employers ensure that they adhere to them; there is legal recourse against those that don’t. What we are seeing instead is the unnecessary taxpayer-funding of loudmouth wokeism."

"Many public sector organisations would have you believe they run tight ships, that they have no more fat left to trim. Don’t believe a word of it: there’s millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money sloshing around the social justice blob. The hard-won money of working taxpayers is lining the pockets of aggressive activists who push for deeply divisive and unpopular ideological agendas."

"It’s time for public sector bodies to follow the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the equalities minister herself, Liz Truss, and withdraw funding for wasteful schemes like Diversity Champions."

Brilliant.

Forget what Stonewall is about. The fact that the public sector is paying a lobbying organisation, and has allowed such a lobbying organisation to train staff and, seemingly, write policy, is unacceptable.

The public sector should obviously consult Stonewall, Help the Aged, Greenpeace or whatever relevant stakeholder. But there need to be strict guidelines in place to ensure that boundaries are not crossed.

Great to see this being picked up.

So they actually do a thing behind misrepresenting the law and strong-arming people into being ‘believers’? So they fund clinics or therapists? Do they give money to refuges?

What do they actually do to make peoples lives better or safer

@DadDadDad

Is anyone wondering what's happened to Stonewall's latest accounts?

Their financial year ends in September, which means their report and accounts was due to the Charity Commission by 31 July - but their September 2020 accounts are not yet on the Commission's website (and Stonewall's website is still only showing the Sept 2019 accounts).

Stonewall applied to extend its accounting period by 6 months to the 31/3/2021, so it may be the end of December before they are on the Companies House website.

Interestingly, three new directors have been appointed in the last few weeks.

This is the news piece which the comment column above relates to

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stonewall-paid-1m-by-taxpayers-for-its-advice-3lqchrzs6?shareToken=4fb284a24c21324092f20cdf571a1dd8

The news piece doesn’t show? Is it IT issues or legal ones?

Current thread demonstrated the unacceptable homophobia of some gender identity believers. Such unacceptable atitudes towards lesbians and gay men have been fuelled by the former LGB charity Stonewall UK.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4317153-Gay-men-being-subject-to-abuse-for-their-sexuality

This is good news. In the post covid environment they're going to find it very hard to justify. Much as I disagree with the Taxpayers Alliance good luck to them on this one.

I was just about to ask if anybody else has access problems. I don't think it's a legal issue, I can't get to an article about knitting either.

Also in the Spectator

www.spectator.co.uk/article/stonewall-and-the-problem-with-taxpayer-funded-campaigning

Thanks, @Ekofisk, I wasn't aware of that. Their last accounts showed expenditure was exceeding income, so it's a long wait to see if their more recent finances are doing any better.

@OneEpisode

The news piece doesn’t show? Is it IT issues or legal ones?

IT issues

@Igneococcus

I was just about to ask if anybody else has access problems. I don't think it's a legal issue, I can't get to an article about knitting either.

I can't get through to my own link , it says internal server error.so maybe try later.

@DadDadDad

Thanks, *@Ekofisk*, I wasn't aware of that. Their last accounts showed expenditure was exceeding income, so it's a long wait to see if their more recent finances are doing any better.

One of the new Trustees / Directors is a fund raising specialist (“Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships”).

This makes me feel absolutely sick.

That money could be doing so much good - I know in terms of government spending it's a tiny amount but still. It is worse than it having been flushed down the drain even, because it's gone to people who've done harm.

Add this to the £2.6 million+ Stonewall gets in government grants and it's quite the gravy train they've got going on.

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/stonewallreceivedd266millioninngovernmentgrants

Effectively paying them to come up with the schemes and then paying to be members. You really couldn't makeup a more Brass Eye scenario if you tried.

Excellent. Well done TPA. We need more sunlight

@Tibtom

They may be handing over £1 million cash but that is not the half of it. The money spent on employing people to fill in their forms or to enable employees to attend their training courses (leaving aside for the moment the content of those courses) must equal far more than that. It would interesting if someone could work out what this amounted to.

There's not a number but a breakdown of what is asked is here: legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/

(Apologies if you are already aware and were referring to this - thought skink might be useful for the thread)