XML FeedsCharity commission response to our Little Treasures Children's trust complaint
By Value hunter on Jan 24, 2011 | In In real life, Bad business, What is the point?, Quango watch
Weeks after registering a complaint in writing, via the Charity commission's own website (charitycommission.gov.uk) we finally have a response to our complaint, regarding Little Treasures Children's trust - posting collection bags and returning to collect them on our street, without having a valid license to do so.
"Thank you for your email. Although it is some weeks since you sent this to the Charity Commission, I would like to assure you that your concerns have been brought to the attention of the Commissions Compliance team about the manner in which the charity is operating. We have received a number of complaints about this charity and are currently in the process of looking into these matters.
Part of the our role is to evaluate causes for concern, and if substantiated, ensure they are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees.
At this stage, I can only advise that it is up to you to decide if you should support this charity in the future."
"We have received a number of complaints about this charity and are currently in the process of looking into these matters"
According to charity commission telephone advisors, no charity complaint is investigated unless the commission receives around 3000 similar complaints.
I was advised that if I submitted the complaint in writing it would go "on file" until such time as a sufficient number of complaints were received, then and only then would it be investigated.
Should it not be the case, that it matters not wether it is one person making the complaint or three thousand people. If the complaint can be substantiated then it should be dealt with?
"Part of the our role is to evaluate causes for concern, and if substantiated, ensure they are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees."
"Evaluate causes for concern?"
This charity are making collections for clothing illegally. Is this not cause for concern enough?
"If substantiated?"
One simple phone call to the chief licensing officer of my local council - which I provided with the complaint - would substantiate my complaint instantly. The licensing officer at my local council would confirm that both Little treasures children's trust and East London Textiles (ELT) that collect on their behalf, have never applied for, or been granted a license to post bags or make street collections in our licensed area.
On the collection I registered a complaint for, I even gave the name of one of the five staff working at Little treasures children's trust, who told me a catalogue of lies about what was going on and the same person who ADMITTED that it was one of little treasures children's trust's own vans that carried out the collection, without a license!
"Ensure they [charity complaints] are rectified, either through the use of statutory powers or by providing regulatory guidance and advice to the charity trustees?"
In this case, we have a complaint substatiated by a chief licensing officer for a local council, the neighbourhood police officers, a member of the charity staff themselves.
Other cases up and down the country, even have trading standards in other areas advising not to give to this charity's collections and local councillors in other areas refusing license applications on the grounds that the company making collections on behalf of the charity are making excessive profits for the collection to be deemed charitable.
Which begs the question:
If the charity commission have statutory powers, why are they not being used to stop this practice?
"At this stage, I can only advise that it is up to you to decide if you should support this charity in the future."
Is that it?
That's the best the charity commission can do?
After the stringent cuts in funding for public bodies/quangos that has just come into force, it might reassure you to know that this year's funding for the charity commission, that comes from taxpayer's money, is £29 MILLION. This falls gradually to £21 MILLION by 2015.
I don't believe that the charity commission are doing what they were put in place to do.
Yet another "talking shop" who discuss and market their own importance, yet don't actually DO anything.
The law clearly states that advertising for doorstep collections (leaflets/collection bags) and visiting areas with a van making collections, without a license, in a licensing area, is illegal.
It is worth reiterating, that charities that collect in this way without a license, are taking away vital funding opportunities from legitimate charities and misleading the public, making people less inclined to donate to charities in the future. Harming charitable causes as a whole, is supposed to be one of the charity commission's priorities?
This complaint is a perfect example of there being in place a simple piece of law, designed to stop pushing leaflets/collection bags through our front doors and visiting our areas without a license, stopping companies collecting on behalf of a charity, whilst making excessive profit using a charity's name, which is not being enforced by the police, local councils, trading standards and quangos set in place to protect the general public.
Related posts:
Little treasures children's trust - clothing collection scam
Little treasures children's trust threaten frugal ways with court action
10 comments
I am now totally confused as to weather my roadside collection donation made on Friday 24th June in Chelmsford essex was genuine or not.Early on Friday morning a man in a small black van collected my bag,but later that day a white transit van stopped to collect my neighbours donation. I asked the young man for his ID. He produced a card which said he was collecting for some East London collection service.As he spoke very little English I spoke with the driver. She also spoke very little English.
I do not know if either or none of these was genuine,certainly one of them was not.
I felt that I had to know of my recent experience which will now deter me from supporting any charity via doorstep collections
Hi Neville,A quick call to your local council and ask to speak with the "licensing office" - ask if east london textiles/little treasures children's trust have a license to operate a doorstep collection in your area. They will be able to tell you to immediately if they do or do not have a license.
If they do not, then you can report the charity they were collecting on behalf of to the charity commission and east london textiles ltd to your local trading standards office.
You have hit the nail on the head as regards deterring you from donating to other doorstep collections.
Collections without licenses take away valuable funding from legitimate charities, they bring charities into disrepute and the charity commission as part of their remit (and public funding) are, we are told, acting to stop it.
Many councils up and down England, have blocked/refused to issue licenses to collection companies, as the profits they make are a high percentage of the sell on money, with only a small amount going to the charity named on their bags.
I am not against doorstep collections per say, I just wish that charities who push the constant stream of bags through my letterbox would do the legal thing and obtain a license before doing so. This way, I know that the charity/collection has been vetted first by my local council, which is why we all pay our taxes.
According to its last accounts statement, filed with the Charities Commission, Little Treasures Children's Trust describes itself as "a local charity" that provides a "hands-on service and grants which mainly operates in Essex and the London Borough of Havering". I live in Carlisle, Cumbria. That's about as far as it's possible to get from the London Borough of Havering and still be in England. Yet my neighbourhood has been bombarded with plastic collection sacks from this charity which coyly refer to its collection agency as ELT: why no mention of the full name?
For a charity, this one certainly has a distinctive way of performing its good works. According to that last statement of accounts (18 months ago)the charity's Trustees have actual family links to the organisation, viz:
"During the year, a finance agreement was entered into for a van in the name of Mrs JAnet Rowbotham, the wife of the trustee, M. G. Rowbotham. The charity is paying all the monthly repayments to the finance provider. The van is also being used all for the purposes of the charity's activities.
"Miss E. M. Ratcliffe is employed by the charity as a part-time administrator and received a salary of £16,261 for the year for such administrative duties. Miss E. M. Ratcliffe is also a daughter and sister of the two respective Trustees, K. D. Ratcliffe and T. F. Ratcliffe."
So. . . who are these Rowbothams and Ratcliffes then?
They must be highly experienced in working with children with serious medical conditions: is one member of one family a doctor, perhaps? Or another member of another family, a consultant pedeatrician?
The "so many very sick and disabled children in the UK that are not getting any help" must be grateful to the Rowbothams and Ratcliffes for their combined expertise and experience -- and for their collective ability to identify a nationwide scandal, seeing as how the plastic collectioin sack doesn't talk about children in the London Borough of Havering, but about children "in the UK that are not getting any help". . .
. . . Even if it seems just a leetle unusual that a charity approved by the Charity Commission has Trustees whose family members appear to derive some benefit from the funds received by that charity.
Hopefully, frugal ways will continue to monitor Little Treasures Children's Trust, the self-confessed "local charity" which for some reason is running door to door collections hundreds of miles from its main operational area -- and giving every impression that it is a national, not simply London Borough of Havering, charitable resource.
Thanks for the info Scott.If you would like to ask ELT (East London Textiles ltd) anything, we have Arthur currently answering questions on our other thread,
http://www.frugalways.co.uk/life.php/little-treasures-children-s-trust-clothing-collection-scam
Scroll down to the bottom few comments and put your questions to him there.
Or if you'd rather, Arthur has included email/telephone number. He works for the collection helpline alongside Little treasures.
Thanks for taking the time to post.
Thanks for your reply -- I'll browse over to your other thread now. Well, I've had a look at the other thread, though candidly, am not much wiser.And I don't wish to get side-tracked into a discussion where, to lapse into the vernacular (and without in any way seeking to give offence to anyone here) time is expended on the organ grinder's pet, rather than the organ grinder.
The organ grinder here is something called Little Treasures Children's Trust -- on the face of it, a national charity addressing a national need which, according to its own website, it is uniquely placed to do.
On which basis, therefore, it must have been set up by people with a background in medicine, social work, or associated professional disciplines, and all its staff will be qualified in those same professional disciplines.
On which basis, too, it will have a list of specific areas in the UK where it has actively, or is still actively, working with doctors, hospitals, or other referring agencies.
It will be able to say how many families and children are being helped and where they are.
It will be able to quantify the financial commitment devoted to each case, either past or ongoing.
And it will be able to reel off an entire list of commendations and recommendations from the medical profession -- General Practitioners, hospital consultants, paediatricians, social workers, Local Authority support teams etc etc -- without in any way breaching the letter and spirit of the Data Protection Act.
So far. . . it has done none of this. Its collection bags are labelled with ELT as if, for some odd reason, it is coy about naming the textile processor in full. So far, too, it is vague about just what it is actually doing anyway: the bag I have says:
"Thanks to your donations Little Treasures Children's Trust Charity is aiming to generate at least £50,000 in the first year of collection" -- when, as any fule knows, it's 2011 at the moment, and has been since January 1st, and Little Treasures has certainly been collecting for considerably longer than a year already.
I have asked our Licensing Department to let me know when LTCT applied for a licence, how long it is supposed to run, and on what grounds was approval given.
I wish to be satisfied as to the charity's provenance and to its stated claim that it is dealing with a nationwide need.
So far, sad to say, nothing about LTCTC impresses in the slightest.
I'm in the process of doing exactly the same with my own council here Scott.Formally requesting the information of when was a license granted, by whom and based on what evidence, I received a reply asking me what information was required....
I've resubmitted the request for all the good it will do
I passed on information about a charity who were committing acts of trespass to put collection bags through my door to the Charities Commission and asked for their comments, only to be told "not in our remit".So, Charities Commission, what actually is in your remit? Because from my experience, and that of the blogger and other commenters, they don't do much for their (taxpayers') money.
Even with the cuts Richard, the Charity Commission will still have taxpayer funding of more than £21 MILLION per year by 2015.Something similar has been suggested to myself by the commission as well, referring to another quango (any links to top brass at the charity commission?) who have recently set themselves up to advise and guide us (in their infinate wisdom) as regards charity collections.
If the Charity commission exists to "Safeguard Charities and stop them from being brought into disrepute" exactly how do they think they can get away with ignoring unlawful collection methods?
How is this not bringing the name of charity into disrepute?
Thanks for posting your info Richard
I notice they now say they have cut back on giving money and do more 'outreach' work. I suppose this is to make up for the pathetic amount they give in their accounts as cash donations. I would like to know how they can make around £230,000 in a year but spend £157,000 on wages for 'no more than' 6 members of staff? | « Hanging a wall cupboard on a plasterboard wall | Dad diary - Baby development ideas » |
