Ban on Government funding for lobbying

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michael769
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby michael769 » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:00 pm

martine wrote:
Can you tell me more about the money Brake gets from the MoJ - is this 'victim support' grants?



Not really. All that's in the public domain as far as I am aware, is a brief mention of the existence of grants in a press release - the accounts do not separate out public sector grants.

One would presume given the source that it is indeed related to victim support, but I guess the question is if it is ring fenced, and even if it is, does that just mean that funds they raise elsewhere are as a result freed up for other purposes.

The latter issue that ring fenced funds can sometimes displace finding from other sources, and thus potentially increase the lobbying budget will make it rather difficult to be certain that government funding does not indirectly support lobbying other than an outright refusal to provide funding to organisations that lobby.

I guess the only way would be to insist that part of an organisation that gets government funding is only funded by donations that are also specifically earmarked for that purpose. That might be no band thing, I cannot be the only person to refuse to contribute to certain good causes due to their lobbying activities.

akirk wrote:while at a slight tangent, this is an interesting area of debate...
the large charities would argue that it is about % spend, not absolute spend - so, they might spend 1% on overheads (v. 5% - 15% in a smaller charity), yet the actual overheads spend could be in the millions - the charity feels they are managing really well, yet the critics focus on the large number and criticise them - a difficult one, but in general charities in the UK are run really efficiently... while it is valid to ask about spend on political lobbying, I think that where a charity is sound (unlike some recent high profile news!) then the overhead spend is usually not too bad...


To be honest I'm less concerned about the salaries than the approach to fundraising that has resulted. Businesses have a tendency to, as organisations, to behave in a manner that reasonable individuals would consider immoral. I often see companies justify such conduct on the basis that it's legal.

When armies of students can be paid to harrass shoppers, or sharp suitied salesmen on commision to do the same on peoples doorsteps, just to get people to sign up direct debits, I would argue something has gone badly wrong. The former has largely stopped and the latter is dying away, but only because it's getting harder to get annoyed people to respond to such high pressure techniques. The cost of such conduct is to have done terrible damage to the charity sector, donations generally in the UK have been falling over recent years as more and more people, sick of such conduct, decide just to to donate at all, something that the more sensible heads in the charity sector have been warning would happen for years as they spoke our about such conduct.

Having seen a big name charity (not BRAKE I hasten to add) parrot the "it's legal innit" on national TV in an excuse to justify hounding elderly people with cold calls and selling their details to other charities who they know will behave in the same reprehensible fashion has pretty much been the final nail in the coffin, as far as I am concerned.

Fundamentally businesses lack empathy and sadly when one sees the same lack of empathy in a charity one has to question to what extent the charity now exists to further it's original aims, as opposed to the aggrandisement and enrichment of its senior executives.

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akirk
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby akirk » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:30 pm

I think it might be a generalisation to say that businesses lack empathy - I run my own, and advise a number of businesses, the majority actually can show a lot of empathy, what is often missing though is the sense of partnership between business and customer / public... all too often either the business sees the market as ripe for exploitation / the customer base sees the business as ripe for abuse / theft / etc. - sadly this is simply a reflection of the society in which we now live...

However it is perhaps harder for a large business to show empathy... where it does, it tends to be high calibre staff within creating that influence, when they move it can go...

similarly with charities - there is perhaps an interesting case to be argued that when a charity grows to above a certain size (to be defined) that:
a) there is a risk that they lose some of their origins
b) there is an argument that if their work is necessary, their scale means that perhaps the government should be looking at how this is run for the country (e.g. cancer research where scale of operation could make a difference in results)

It is difficult though to generalise and say that charities should never be above a specific size - e.g. the RNLI - there is often criticism about the amount of their invested funds, yet they gain the ability to invest in their development of new boats etc. which would otherwise not be possible - and they run a service which could be argued to be a role of government (e.g. coastguard), yet in our constant pressure to lower taxes, it is not possible to run everything centrally...

I agree there can be issues, I just don't think it is all that simple, and I have been involved (main driver) in the setup of 4 charities - 3 small ones, one national charity & am very involved in another which dates back hundreds of years... - each has had and has different issues - each is run ethically, none of them 'lobby' government, but two of them have been invited to join discussion with government - clearly different from lobbying, but perhaps with some overlap... complex area!

Alasdair

michael769
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby michael769 » Mon Feb 08, 2016 9:51 pm

akirk wrote:I think it might be a generalisation to say that businesses lack empathy - I run my own, and advise a number of businesses, the majority actually can show a lot of empathy,


I will admit I was thinking in terms of the multinational/PLC. Empathy tends to be more readily apparent in smaller companies - but the larger the organisation becomes - and more specifically the further senior management gets separated from the front line, the easier it becomes for execs to initiate policies that they would probably not be willing to do themselves if they were the one looking their customers in the eye (something that is at the root of the abysmal customer service offered by many large organisations).

For example I wonder how many of the CEOs of ISPs would be willing spend the rest of their working life in a cubicle, trying to convince their customers that a service that falls so far short of what they advertise that no rational human being would describe it as working, is actually perfectly fine?

I would equally distinguish the multi-national and very large national charities from smaller locally run organisations. In my experience the conduct of companies is often determined by how likely and willing the folks at the top are to do at least some aspect of what one would consider front line activities, I suspect the same is the case for charities - I wonder how many large charity CEOs have gone chugging or door stopping?

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akirk
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby akirk » Mon Feb 08, 2016 10:30 pm

fair points - I have really enjoyed that programme on television where the boss goes back to the floor and works anonymously as a member of staff - it is as you say a realisation of the vast difference between what is happening and what (in most cases) they assume / hope / think / believe is happening...

I think that a part of the problem in a large business is that for the company to survive it has to have rigid processes, but to offer good customer service really it would be better to be able to handle those processes on a one-to-one basis... and there is never anyone in a large company or organisation who fully understands everything about the business and so can make it fully work... however, perhaps we have to ask the other question - is there any benefit to consumers in having large businesses... and I think there can be - in reality we get a lot more for a lot less than is possible from small businesses, so is it worth the compromise? I think our society would be very different if we got rid of large organisations (possibly better, but the change would be painful for some - especially the poorer), but no one would have the courage to find out...

Alasdair

waremark
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby waremark » Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:30 am

Michael and Alasdair - a stimulating discussion.

Alasdair, I would be interested to know more about the charities you are involved with. If you are seeking affordable support feel free to email me.

michael769
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby michael769 » Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:55 am

akirk wrote:fair points - I have really enjoyed that programme on television where the boss goes back to the floor and works anonymously as a member of staff - it is as you say a realisation of the vast difference between what is happening and what (in most cases) they assume / hope / think / believe is happening...


Yes, my lot force managers to spend a couple of days shadowing on the front lines. I think it's a good thing for higher level management to see what folks have to put up with.

I think that a part of the problem in a large business is that for the company to survive it has to have rigid processes, but to offer good customer service really it would be better to be able to handle those processes on a one-to-one basis...


Yes it can be a conundrum. On one hand you want consistency in your approach, on the other there is no such thing as a "one size fits all solution". It is not, however an inevitability - ultimately you can choose to train your people to a level where you can safely grant them (or at least a subset of the front lines) an appropriate level of autonomy to make decisions in their customers interests. There are customer service surveys publishes by the likes of which and they present a very stark difference between the best and worst in CS from big companies. The best prove that it is possible for large companies to provide good CS and be successful (in fact it is markedly the case that the best in CS are among the most successful). I woudl argue that those big companies that do not provide good CS do that because they simply don't care.

and there is never anyone in a large company or organisation who fully understands everything about the business and so can make it fully work... however, perhaps we have to ask the other question - is there any benefit to consumers in having large businesses... and I think there can be - in reality we get a lot more for a lot less than is possible from small businesses, so is it worth the compromise?


I think this is fair comment, and I for one (as someone who works in a large multi national) am of the view that overall the benefits can outweigh the downsides. That however is not a good reason to excuse bad behavior. I do think that we are too tolerant of bad behavior by large corporates at a government and regulation level. It is not inevitable that all will behave badly, but when one is largely free of any consequences it is inevitable that many more will misbehave than would be the case if they could effectively be called to account.

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akirk
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby akirk » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:22 am

one issue with big corporations is that the focus is too biased towards short-term profitability - the result of needing to keep the shareholders happy... I remember a conversation with a friend who is very senior in banking circles talking about CEOs and their dilemma, make a good profit this year and all that happens is that a normal profit next year looks as though you are in decline! This leads to decisions being made which are not ultimately good for the company or the customer. I worked for a large multi-national a while back, and one suggestion I put forward was to employ call centre staff with a higher level of training / competency - more expensive, but as more capable, they would sort issues out more rapidly... ultimately the figures suggested that there could even be a cost saving long term and certainly an increase in customer satisfaction - but the issue was the front-loading of cost which would have made the customer services department look bad, so the director responsible was not interested... They refused to accept that their role was to move in a direction which would logically get rid of / reduce the need for their department - i.e. their attitude was that the more disatisfied the customers / the longer it took to resolve the issues, the more they could demonstrate the need for their empire / their salary / their bonus! Of course they never vocalised it in that way, but it was clearly the underlying issue... sadly when you have people who operate in that way there is no chance that a business will operate in favour of the customer base...

Alasdair

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akirk
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby akirk » Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:27 am

waremark wrote:Michael and Alasdair - a stimulating discussion.

Alasdair, I would be interested to know more about the charities you are involved with. If you are seeking affordable support feel free to email me.


Thank you - very much a discussion close to my heart - ethical and efficient business :)

the charities range from a small private family charity to bigger... I am involved with the Haberdashers' Company (livery company of London) who are very involved in education, through that I set up a small regional charity in Monmouth working in the area of Autism education (educating professionals etc.)... perhaps more interesting was my involvement in 4x4 Response which some on here might know about - coming across it in 2008 it was a loose federation of 20 regional independent groups using a common forum for discussion... I set up the national umbrella charity which allowed it to be seen as a national brand / organisation while still having the groups run independently... My involvement tends to be at the startup / initial stages as that is my expertise in business etc. so am not actively involved in either now - however it has led to a wealth of interesting experiences...

will have a chat at some point...

Alasdair

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Horse
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Re: Ban on Government funding for lobbying

Postby Horse » Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:37 pm

akirk wrote: I think that a part of the problem in a large business is that for the company to survive it has to have rigid processes, but to offer good customer service really it would be better to be able to handle those processes on a one-to-one basis... and there is never anyone in a large company or organisation who fully understands everything about the business and so can make it fully work...


Oh how that rings true . . .

I've just some out of an 8 month extension build - and part of the reason it took so long was the kitchen design and fitting by a certain national D&iY company ('Why'? Form a Q . . . IYSWIM).

It started to go wrong, then went badly wrong, then to the extent where the regional manager wouldn't answer to try and sort it. Eventually I complained to the CEO, who passed it to the 'resolutions team' as a 'Director's complaint' with promises of personal responsibility for a solution. "Hurrah!" I thought. Wrong! They passed it straight back to the manager who couldn't/wouldn't sort it . . .

All it needed was someone so say "I'll sort it. I'll determine exactly what the problems are, then ensure it is sorted, properly, and soon". But no . . .

Just to give one example, two months after the incorrect parts were delivered, the much-vaunted 'proper' installation parts were delivered . . . yup, the same wrong parts.

Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.


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