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.

Skink = this

Thanks Clymene, not read that one.

Ibid. TPA
(extract)
"Quango Homes England spent the most on Diversity Champions and associated schemes, at a total cost of £45,942, while the former Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave the most of any government department at £19,012."

Mx Louise Elizabeth Downe was appointed Trustee/ Director of Stonewall Equality Ltd on 30 June 2021.

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02412299/officers
register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/3992465/trustees

12 April 2019 Homes England appoints Service Design & Transformation Director
Homes England continues to strengthen its senior leadership team with the appointment of Lou Downe as Director of Service Design and Transformation.
Lou will take on a critical role, responsible for transforming planning and development across the sector, as well as implementing Homes England’s new operating model and designing effective services to support the government’s ambitious goal of delivering hundreds of thousands of homes across the country each year.

Lou brings a wealth of experience to the role and is currently the Head of Service Design and Standards for the UK Government at the Government Digital Service. (continues)
www.gov.uk/government/news/homes-england-appoints-service-design-transformation-director

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of the report the 'Taxpayers' Alliance wins the award for the most deviously named lobbying firm and is terrible company for liberals with GC views.

I really wish there were more Liberal voices willing to stand up to this ideology.

Ooh excellent sleuthing R0wantrees !

And in a development which will surprise no one, a quick google of Mx Downe reveals they have dropped Louise and are now non binary they/he Lou. Although I guess not on official paperwork.

Also no longer work for the government which i guess is a relief.

@Fleek

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.

Me too.

I work at a charity and donations are going to fund this nonsense. It's money taken away from the cause.

archive of comment column: archive.is/B0VHp

archive of news story: tbd for IT problems

archive of Spectator item: archive.is/VN4OQ

I've just found this question in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index -
Q5.2 In the past year, which of the following activities have elected members engaged in?
A) Communicated a strong message on sexual orientation equality.
B) Communicated a strong message on trans equality.
C) Met periodically with the LGBT employee network group.
D) Reviewed top line LGBT monitoring reports and actions.
E) Spoken at an internal LGBT event.
F) Spoken at an external LGBT event.
G) Engaged with senior management to discuss LGBT equality.
H) Reviewed and/or approved an LGBT inclusion strategy.
I) Attended an external LGBT event, eg

Why are Council Officials being expected to report on what elected members are doing or not doing to a lobby group? They're accountable to voters.

Just another aside
The former Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave the most of any government department to the Diversity Champions scheme, training programmes and conferences, at £19,012.
Felix Fern was till recently Trans lead for their LBGTQ+ staff network and organiser of the recent Trans Protest.

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

Four directors/trustees were appointed 30 June 2021 to Stonewall Equality Ltd.

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02412299/officers?page=1

ALAO, Tayibatu Dunni
DOWNE, Louise Elizabeth, Mx
FALEYE, Gbolahan
LAKE, Adam

Felix Fern is the man dressed as an adult baby with the slut badge at the trans rights protest

ALAO, Tayibatu Dunni
DOWNE, Louise Elizabeth, Mx
FALEYE, Gbolahan
LAKE, Adam

And Dr Kyle Shea Ring, so that makes five.

Is there a conflict of interest between Downe's trusteeship at Stonewall and position with Homes England?

@Procrastinator3

Is there a conflict of interest between Downe's trusteeship at Stonewall and position with Homes England?

Downe quit as Director of Housing and Land transformation for the UK Government in December 2020.

@Procrastinator3

Is there a conflict of interest between Downe's trusteeship at Stonewall and position with Homes England?

Equally is there a conflict between Sheldon Mill's chairman ship and his senior position at the FCA, the body that regulates the financial sector?

Long ago I worked for a similar body. A friend was standing as a parliamentary candidate for an unwinnable seat in a rural part of the country, where her main aim was to organise a visible campaign and avoid losing her deposit. She invited me, and some other friends along, essentially a sort of alternative girls weekend. I checked with my employer, and got a straight no. As a junior public sector worker I was not allowed to engage in political activity.

I fail to see how being a trustee in a high profile, public sector funded, lobbying organisation, is less political than what I asked to do.

Any well run charity will have a conflict of interest policy as it’s very common that a circumstance will arise where there is a conflict of interest e.g. a trustee maybe from an organisation that delivers services in an area

Good practice would be for that trustee to put that conflict of interest on record at the beginning of the board meeting & to absent themselves from discussions where there is a COI and not to vote on any issue where there is a COI

Good practice would be for that trustee to put that conflict of interest on record at the beginning of the board meeting & to absent themselves from discussions where there is a COI and not to vote on any issue where there is a COI

Pretty much everything I attend has a COI register that we have to keep up-to-date. Before every meeting for some bodies we're sent a new form to update any COI or DOI (declaration of interest) and we consent to having this shared in public.

If somebody has (say) a publication involved, they can participate in discussions but not vote on anything. For other matters, they can't participate in that discussion at all in addition to not voting.

More and more, the whiff of corruption keeps getting in my nostrils. Time for the Charity Commission to take a long hard look at the sector (all of it) because something stinks

Are the charity commission a Stonewall Champion? Or is that a bit too obvious a conflict? A bit like the judiciary getting Gendered Inteliigence to provide indoctrination and write their rule book then presiding over a case bought by Gendered Intelligence....

@Tibtom

Are the charity commission a Stonewall Champion? Or is that a bit too obvious a conflict? A bit like the judiciary getting Gendered Inteliigence to provide indoctrination and write their rule book then presiding over a case bought by Gendered Intelligence....

It seems they are not

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/724565/response/1738446/attach/html/3/20210304%20response%20to%20request%20for%20information%20to%20C%20Dickens.pdf.html

Or the SNP providing money to charities on condition that they sign up to support the SNP's ideology and then only getting views on that ideology from those charities.

Stonewall is too embedded within some public sector organisations. Its training and advice is shaping the very culture and outlook of the organisation. Too much for an interests register. There needs to be clear guidance about boundaries that need to be maintained between the public sector and lobbying and special interest groups.

The problem perhaps is that there is a lack of transparency within Stonewall about who sets their policy and how it is adopted. The policy that is then amplified across the public sector. It is worth remembering that not too long ago Aimee Challenor sat on Stonewall's all important trans-advisory committee, indeed at one point she was Chair or vice-Chair. (And then went on to have an equally influential role as a Reddit staffer/moderator.)

Governments get elected and so are accountable, people on Stonewall Committees are not, and thus not accountable. They should be listened to, but be able to influence policy via back channel policy advice and training.

Is there a conflict of interest between Downe's trusteeship at Stonewall and position with Homes England?

Downe appears to have left Homes England in December 2020 to set up a business:

THE SCHOOL OF GOOD SERVICES LTD
Company number 13065861
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13065861/filing-history

website:
"About
Lou Downe is the former Design Director of the UK Government where they founded the discipline of service design in the UK government, growing a 1000 strong community of designers into one of the largest, and most influential design team’s in the UK - winning a Designs of the Year award and a D&AD lifetime achievement award.

Lou has years of experience transformaing large-scale organisations and was voted one of the UK’s top 50 Creative Leaders by Creative Review, and one of the world’s 100 most influential people in Digital Government by Apolitical."
good.services/about

Genius comment about Stonewall

Well, well, well.

@FindTheTruth

Genius comment about Stonewall

Well yes. It is evil genius in action.

Machiavelli would have approved.