C.E. Jottings

Top charity ordered to explain CEO's payoff

Questions are being asked about the integrity of a top UK charity's governance and prudent use of charitable funds, after it paid a large sum to a departing chief executive in return for a confidentiality agreement. According to The Times yesterday, the Charity Commission has sought "urgent assurances" from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) about a payment made to its former CEO in return for which a confidentiality agreement prevents him from discussing the... Read more →

Care Act 2014 - Wellbeing principle - legal challenge by disabled man against cut to his care package

I hope Community Care won't mind but I'm going to quote their report in full: High Court allows first legal challenge over Care Act wellbeing principle My personal interest is that my daughter, Sarah, is going through the same process of re-assessment, is of a similar age and, most importantly, we as her parents would want a similar case to be made for her in terms of the importance of her wellbeing. Paces - where she attends the adult group... Read more →

If we can't do the maths on neurodevelopment problems, can we at least agree on the words?

So many words we use as if we had a common understanding what they mean: “inclusion” for instance, or “needs”; “special educational needs” or “learning disability”. A few months ago, we finally, after very many years, successfully, or so we thought, saw our adult daughter moved from the “physical disabilities team” to the “learning disabilities team”. Today, we learned that there was a flaw in the assessment and that she must be re-assessed – parents not invited, by the way.... Read more →

No longer Keeping Kids Company. What were the Board of Trustees thinking? Are there lessons for all Trustees and all charities?

Are there lessons to be learned by all charity Trustees in the collapse of Kids Company? I have been interested in the fate of Kids Company since the recent publication of the fact that in 2003 HM Revenue and Customs wrote off almost £600,000 in unpaid national insurance contributions in return for a deal that Kids Company paid up just £100,000. This was a staggering deal, maybe even unprecedented. The Chair of Trustees, Alan Yentob, also Creative Director at the... Read more →

A couple of pretty scams. Nice work if you can get it.

Here's a couple of pretty scams. Nice work if you can get it. The first scam concerns the CEO of the Anchor Trust, Jane Ashcroft, who reportedly has seen her pay rise by £35,000 over the past 4 years to an eye-watering £420,000 pa. The Chair of Anchor Trust trotted out the wholly familiar excuse for this state of affairs that "Anchor is a large and complex organisation .... competing successfully with commercial care providers". You can see what the... Read more →

Congratulations to PACE Centre on winning DfE Voluntary & Community Sector grant

Congratulations to the PACE Centre in Aylesbury in winning funding from the DfE. "The project includes a combination of direct support for children and young people with sensory motor disorders - offering training/guidance for mainstream schools and making good links between mainstream and special settings". DfE grants to voluntary organisations "will be used to reform or deliver life-changing services over the next year". 94 projects will benefit from a share of £25m. The Department says "The money will be spread... Read more →

Save Sproughton School for Parents

Another small conductive education centre in the UK is under threat. This time it is Sproughton School for Parents in Suffolk. The call "aux armes" (or 'Mayday' perhaps) has gone out. An appeal for £80,000 has been launched on "GoFundMe". By this morning, £8,140 has been raised in six days. "We've got a fight on our hands. The School for Parents is a vital service for children with disabilities across Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. "With 2 weeks notice, the school... Read more →

Cross-party defence of real cost of special education

The best bit is the contribution by Claire Dorer CEO of the National Association of Independent and non-maintained special schools. But it's great to see cross-party support in minority-Labour-run Merton defending the real cost of special education. I missed it at the time, but the story begins with one of those ghastly, ill-thought through scribblings that pass for journalism that the Daily Mail specialises in "Council spent £338k educating one disabled boy". It's a rambling mess of a piece but... Read more →

Win prizes and eat cookies for Paces at Sheffield Food Festival

Sheffield Hilton at the Sheffield Food Festival Read more →

3 stories about public money - and a learning disabilities worry

Three stories in the news, a reflection prompted this morning by reading an article in The Guardian by Ian Birrell, former Deputy Editor of The Independent. There are calls for taking the railways back into public ownership. On Facebook recently, a petition was being circulated.Ian Birrell, noting that "one former rail boss" says that privatisation was "half-hearted and half-baked" opposes the idea. In South Yorkshire, the public sector Digital Region Project finally hits the buffers at a projected cost (ie... Read more →