Trans activist charities receive taxpayers’ money through ‘loophole’- Telegraph

[rogdmum]

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/02/trans-activist-charities-receive-taxpayers-money-loophole/

Jacob Rees-Mogg is setting up a “ministerial oversight board” to ensure charities don’t cascade money to charities which lobby against govt policies. Gendered Intelligence is specifically named as a charity to have helped trigger this move and Mermaids gets a mention as well.

”Mr Rees-Mogg said: “The grants ministerial oversight board is designed to ensure that taxpayers' money cannot disappear into organisations that push divisive and dangerous agendas. It is an essential principle that there is democratic oversight of how government spends money.”

Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence declined to comment.

"In extreme cases, the Government could even demand money is paid back by charities where it is deemed to have been mis-spent.
One of the cases that is understood to have prompted the move involved Sport Englandd_, which receives government grants and National Lottery money, paying more than £140,000 to Gendered Intelligence for transgender inclusion training over the course of two years.
...

Neither Gendered Intelligence nor Sport England responded to requests for comment.
Mermaids, another transgender charity, received £10,000 in the 2019-20 financial year from a fund administered by UK Youth, a charity which receives hundreds of thousands of pounds each year in government grants and lottery funding."

The report describes it as "cascading" money. Clearly more oversight is needed of the original sum and what it's spent on.

This is has happened throughout this government. Millions of ££ donated by them (usually via politicians and the captured civil service) to countless queer theory activist groups - no due diligence, just funding the self interested adult groups.
Suddenly after 12 bloody years when they've allowed mermaids, stonewall, gendered intelligence etc to wreak havoc in education, the NHS and child safeguarding, the tories wake up and set up another pointless board?

FFS what a mess!

to ensure charities don’t cascade money to charities which lobby against govt policies.

While I disagree with ideology and consequent harms pushed by the charities mentioned, I think it is very important to allow charities to lobby against government policies. How else can things change? Are only the independently wealthy to be allowed to lobby government?

It's not the lobbying that's wrong, but allowing those charities to change the law and the interpretation of the law, without ensuring that these changes are benign.

Better late than never and though I truly loathe mog I suspect that he is the right person for this job

In the end, I can't see how stopping them from lobbying will work. However, taking taxpayers' money to fund any kind of communications or media post might.

That's what I was going to say JellySaurus. It's a slippery slope to stopping charities campaigning against benefit cuts, the effects of energy bill rises, or better healthcare provision etc. It's proper scrutiny of funding applications and changes in policy that are needed.

I don’t think the intention is to stop charities lobbying against the government. The intention seems to be to give the Govt greater control over where their grants ultimately end up. Ie if they have decided that the Govt will no longer give direct grants to (for example) Mermaids, they will want to cut off indirect Govt funding to them as well which currently happens via other charities receiving Govt grant money some of which then ends up at Mermaids.

I do share some of the reservations but I think greater oversight of where public money is going is needed.

paying more than £140,000 to Gendered Intelligence for transgender inclusion training over the course of two years.

It's a quite astonishing gravy train, isn't it?

This is a bit naive I'm afraid. The present government has spent much of the last decade trying to silence charities from saying anything that could be seen as remotely critical of them, or could cast them in a negative light. They have done a total job on any dissenting voices, whether the press, the third sector, or anything else, and this is just another part of that

I agree @JellySaurus this governments campaign against charities has been going on for 12 years. They’ve made it abundantly clear that they think charities shouldn’t be allowed to lobby against government policy which in reality means eg Age Uk would not be allowed to campaign about the governments (lack of) social care policy, MIND would not be allowed to campaign about the appalling state of mental health services and shelter wouldn’t be allowed to lobby about the state of the rental market

I’d be very concerned that in reality his would only government approved charities would get money - and that a slew of government friends & relations would suddenly set up charities!

i do agree the likes of Big Lottery & Sport England clearly didn’t do much in the way of due diligence with grants to the likes of mermaids & gendered intelligence but the question is, why did they allow themselves to be taken in by such utter nonsense? JRM committee won’t solve that. It will do is ensure money only goes to charities the committee approves of

When I worked for charities we had grants tied to specific activities and private donations that we could use on our own initiatives. Funding bodies and grants that refused to support contraception were controversial, but they were overcome by using alternative sources and still programming "approved" activities with the somewhat odorous but still desperately needed restricted funding.

It sounds like Sport England has not been explicit in what funding will be used for, or noone was really asking. It seems fair that this is scrutinized and limitations put in place, but it is a balancing act.

It seems fair that this is scrutinized and limitations put in place, but it is a balancing act.

I agree.

It completely misses the point. Of course many charities lobby for particular issues - VAWG, cancer and animal charoties - all lobby for legislative / funding changes etc. Why wouldn't they?
The problem is that this government (along with everyone else) overlooked queer theory underpinning of these trans extremist groups. Many of us spotted the red flags flying when we looked at the nature of individuals being invited in to advise the government, sports bodies, children's charities - flashers, extreme porn advocates, those with behaviour that rendered them unfit to work with children. Yet the tories feted, funded and rewarded them instead of addressing the issues and refusing to engage with organisations who advocated the removing of child safeguarding and women's rights.

If charities want to lobby then surely they raise money from their supporters to fund that lobbying? Public sector grants should be spent on the work they do, not on lobbying activities. If they don't have enough money to fund their lobbying then maybe they should consider that their cause doesn't have much support.

Exactly! So what they need to be looking at is how that was allowed to happen rather than using it as a smokescreen to stop charities campaigning

Tbf mermaids have not explicitly received funding to lobby government what they have been funded for is things like training and a % towards their core costs to ensure the charity can keep running. That’s pretty much the same for every charity

however core costs cover things like CEO salary. Suzy is invited to government meetings and she goes along & states mermaids view. Again that is normal. What isn’t normal is that unlike the vast majority of charities, the government has been saying “yes whatever you want” rather than “thanks we’ll take that on board” and doing nothing.

why is it that this charity along with stonewall & GI have been getting a yes to everything they ask when the vast majority of charities get no? That’s what needs to be untangled

Agree. And "the work they do" shouldn't be "work" that harms children first and foremost.

Yes Theeyeballsinthesky
"why is it that this charity along with stonewall & GI have been getting a yes to everything they ask when the vast majority of charities get no? That’s what needs to be untangled"

This is the key issue. Why are so many scared to prioritise safeguarding when faced with trans extremist groups? Why have children's wellbeing and safety been sacrificed to the demands of the "drugs and surgery can cure your teenage angst" brigade? Why are so many politicians terrified of accurately defining what a woman is?

How on earth have we ended up here?

I think they are demanding that applications for funding have to explain in more detail where the money will go.
So the body asking for funding would have to declare they intend to give it to GI for delivering training. At the moment it seems to be a daisy chain of sub contracts with no scrutiny.
So the gov isn't in position of refusing funding to GI only to find the money given to another charity has been given to them.
That's if I understand it properly.

I think that's entirely reasonable and in keeping with other areas such as research grants. Conflicts of interest should be declared. I'm not saying I trust the government to do it well, but I don't think the suggestion that someone needs to is unreasonable.

£140k used to tell female athletes they must shut the fuck up because their places, medals, prize money etc must be handed over to male athletes under the false narrative of 'inclusion'.

What if this was their intention all along. Deregulate, dismantle, rebuild.

I think we all know why, there are civil servants who agree with trans activists and lie to the ministers, so the people in government don’t understand the issue properly.
This is what happened to Kemi Badenoch. She was consistently told not to meet women who were worried about their rights and child safeguarding. She ignored them thank god.

This.