19 July 2007 Blog Home : July 2007 : Permalink
[I]n Britain, the rich give a lower proportion of their wealth than others, with more donors in the north east than the south east, and more women than men. The total value stays pretty steady at 0.9% of GDP.
0.9% of GDP by region, over time? or what? GDP seems an odd measure for charitable giving by individuals. But I'm allowing myself to get trapped in irrelevant ratholes.So long as they fulfil the very basic requirements of probity, registered charities may cover a multitude of crankiness and inefficiency: cut-throat wasteful competition between near-identical tin-rattlers, advertising campaigns that distort important social issues; or empire building charity managers with little genuine assessment of their outcomes. Of course many are excellent, but, good or bad, the taxpayer has to pony up that 28% extra for every pound put in a tin.
Donors with their hefty cheques can cause serious trouble for good charities doing difficult, skilled work. Masters of the Universe are used to running the show themselves in their own companies, and they think they know best how to run any organisation. Sometimes they do, but sometimes the cash comes at a high price. Once they've got all the "toys", the danger is that using their money to run poor folk, their schools, their estates or their children is just the most fun toy of all.
I'll hand over to Boris for a second to point out that governments are not exactly paragons of efficiency:Take the case of poor Olive Rack, 56, who has 20 years experience as a nursery teacher, and who last year saw one of her charges - a two-year-old - whacking a baby over the head with a large wooden brick. The toddler was about to have a second crack when Olive intervened and took her by the hand to the naughty chair.
Alas, her actions were spotted, through a window, by the emanations of the state. Two early learning advisers from Northampton County Council happened to be doing an inspection, and grimly noted the event.
Five weeks later, to Olive's utter amazement, the police turned up on her doorstep and charged her with common assault. The case went to court, and only collapsed when the toddler's mum said the whole thing was bonkers, and that Olive was a good nursery teacher.
Anyone want to guess how many thousands of pounds were wasted by that attempted prosecution? But there is more. Boris points out that HMG is planning to require nursery / pre-school teachers to become accredited with something called "Early Years Professional Status". Boris notes that if you take a look at the pre-requisites for obtaining one of these piece of paper you need some other pieces of paper:Before you start the training you must have:
[...]Before undertaking the validation process you must:
The main provisions of the national and local statutory and non-statutory frameworks within which children’s services work and their implications for early years settings
andThe current legal requirements, national policies and guidance on health and safety, safeguarding and promoting the well being of children and their implications for early years settings
as well as all sorts of other box ticking. None of which appears to require a university degree or mathematical ability. Indeed I can't help but note that I would apparently meet the requirements (A grades in GCE O Level English and O, AO and A level Maths, BA (Hons) ) but it would seem unlikely that the sort of person that ZANU Labour would like to get into the labour market and who would be suited for this (viz. a teenage single mother) would. Said person would need to atend 3 years of university in order to run a child-care facility.