The end of Gift Aid

AndyK
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by AndyK »

Psamathe wrote:(I've not been a member for ages so just expressing a personal observation)
One assumes that CUK needs money (they are still wanting donations) and that more money means more campaigning and better outcomes for cyclists, I'm surprised that options to reduce the value to members without affecting the services to members has not been explored more (maybe it has?).

For example, printing and posting a magazine must cost a bit and I assume counts towards membership "value". But why not make it downloadable with an option to request a printed version (that is what my Astronomy Society did). Members still get the magazine in a format suitable to them (and "greener" for many) yet costs and average "value" reduced.

For example, why not make 3rd arty insurance cover a free option. Many get it anyway with their household insurance (and being covered twice can complicate claims anyway). Fewer members needing/taking it reduces costs (maybe) and reduces average "value" of membership.

I don't know what other benefits there are but maybe most members don't make use of them so making them free options could help further.

Many will both reduce costs (e.g. magazine) and possible return benefits to a level where Gift Aid might be allowed.

Ian

Yes, all this kind of stuff was considered. It's a bit of a change to see someone on here arguing for fewer member benefits! :D
There's work continuing to find the right balance of benefits for different types of member; there was a big survey of both members and potential members to find out what benefits appealed to them and what they weren't bothered about, and that differed quite a lot across different target audiences. The decision was made not to try and cut back on benefits drastically for the main membership offering.

With the insurance obviously CUK benefits from its bulk buying. Reducing the number of people covered by 1 or 1000 probably wouldn't make much difference to the overall cost.

Just to be clear, nobody disallowed Gift Aid: we weren't forced to stop using it. It was a decision based on the balance of risks and benefits to the charity.

The magazine is another example of how ludicrous the HMRC Gift Aid rules are, by the way, but don't get me started on that again...
thirdcrank
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by thirdcrank »

I don't want to revisit the charity conversion debate again; as I said higher up it's water under the bridge (and Storm Christoph is causing enough of that as it is.)

Speaking as a taxpayer, I'm really pleased to hear that the taxman is screwing down on this. I hope it's evidence that the whole charity sector - which is now increasingly distorting the economy IMO - will come under a proper review. The rather sad thing is that in our class-based society, when a an attempt has been made to extend something to the hoi-polloi, it's apparently been nipped.
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Philip Benstead
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Philip Benstead »

AndyK wrote:
PH wrote:
AndyK wrote:Neither, is the answer. I've just finished three years as a CUK trustee and more specifically as a member of the audit committee, and Gift Aid has been a recurring matter of debate and review throughout that time.

Under review pretty much from the time it was granted then. It's hard to see how this couldn't have been predicted and if it was then it's hard not to conclude that the membership were, at the very least, misled.
Have you some idea of the impact of losing it? It was said to be such a huge benefit, one would assume it will also be a huge loss.

From before the time it was granted. It took a long period of negotiation with HMRC to settle exactly what could be claimed and what couldn't. (After the basis was agreed it could be claimed retrospectively, so the income was delayed but not lost.)

I would say that many of the assertions made about Gift Aid at the time of the charity conversion vote were naive, to put it mildly. I include in that some things said by some of the CTC Councillors of the time, who really should have done their homework better. Gift Aid should never be seen as the reason to become a charity: it is, at best, a nice bonus that comes as a side effect.




Some CTC Councillor did do their homework and set up the webpage SAVE THE CTC;
In addition, senior COUNCILLORS AND MANAGEMENT distorted the terms of reference that an independent business firm CASS MANAGEMENT so that they were briefed to provided a favourable report on the conversion instead of a pros and cons of the conversion.

I made my views known at the time but was rubbish.

We need COUNCILLORS/TRUSTEE that are independent and not to succumbed to groupthink.
Philip Benstead | Life Member Former CTC Councillor/Trustee
Organizing events and representing cyclists' in southeast since 1988
Bikeability Instructor/Mechanic
AndyK
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by AndyK »

Philip Benstead wrote:I made my views known at the time but was rubbish.

Well, if you say so. ;-)
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Philip Benstead
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Philip Benstead »

PH wrote:
Jdsk wrote:
drossall wrote:So I'm wondering whether this is a broad ruling, or relates specifically to something about Cycling UK.

TTBOMK it's the Chapter 3.18 limits:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charities-detailed-guidance-notes/chapter-3-gift-aid#chapter-318-benefits-received-by-donors-and-connected-persons

Jonathan

Thanks for that, I had a vague idea it was 25% but hadn't looked it up.
So that's a benefit limit of less than £11, it doesn't take much to go over that, six magazines and the insurance probably does it, if anything I'm surprised it was ever valued at less. I wonder if the allocation to Member Groups is counted as a benefit, they provide activities which are mostly only open to members. Then there's the discounts, I probably saved a tenner at Halfords.
I find it all a bit odd.



I have been told the magazine is not counted as benefit.
Philip Benstead | Life Member Former CTC Councillor/Trustee
Organizing events and representing cyclists' in southeast since 1988
Bikeability Instructor/Mechanic
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Philip Benstead
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Philip Benstead »

thirdcrank wrote:I don't want to revisit the charity conversion debate again; as I said higher up it's water under the bridge (and Storm Christoph is causing enough of that as it is.)

Speaking as a taxpayer, I'm really pleased to hear that the taxman is screwing down on this. I hope it's evidence that the whole charity sector - which is now increasingly distorting the economy IMO - will come under a proper review. The rather sad thing is that in our class-based society, when a an attempt has been made to extend something to the hoi-polloi, it's apparently been nipped.



Question

Given that none of current trustee were involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permite the trustees to reflect on the decision making process
Philip Benstead | Life Member Former CTC Councillor/Trustee
Organizing events and representing cyclists' in southeast since 1988
Bikeability Instructor/Mechanic
ganesh
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by ganesh »

I'm a bit annoyed that the notification came so late in the filing window for the 2019-20 tax return. I don't particularly mind the change in itself, but had already claimed it on my tax return and now need to spend time amending it and organising the extra tax payment.
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gaz
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by gaz »

Welcome to the forum.

From my own email the change does not appear to affect the 2019/20 tax year.
I can confirm for the tax year 2019 – 20 we have claimed against £72.00 of your membership fee and any donations you may have paid.

If you would normally claim higher rate tax relief on Gift Aid donations made, via your Self Assessment tax return, we would suggest that you only claim the amount referenced above for the tax year 2019-20.

Please note that gaz is not qualified to give advice on tax matters and cannot assess an individual needs for tax advice. You will not receive tax advice or recommendations from gaz. Your home may be at risk if you leave the gas on whilst out on a ride. Posted on a forum that contains track nuts and cannot be guaranteed track nut free. Hand wash only. Do not iron.
High on a cocktail of flossy teacakes and marmalade
thirdcrank
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by thirdcrank »

Philip Benstead wrote: ... Given that none of current trustee were involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permite the trustees to reflect on the decision making process


I'm not sure if this is addressed to me and even less sure about the question being asked.

The fundamental point to me is that a club - organised for the mutual benefit of the membership - was irreversibly converted into a charity - which must be organised for the benefit of the wider society. Against a background of an uninterested membership, the conversion was presented as making no difference to the club side of the organisation but a no-brainer in terms of things like grants and contracts from the public sector.

Let's imagine somebody had decided to establish ie from zero, a charity to promote cycling among the general public; how many cyclists would sign up to pay regularly quite significant sums into that? With or without a "free" mag?

The trustees are legally bound to act in the interests of the charity.

Re decision making: the continued existence of the mag was partly decided on a questionnare which more or less asked people to rank the benefits. The decision to scrap the discounted pensioner rate sounds like a leap into the unknown and may be a big test of the altruism of that part of the membership
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Philip Benstead
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Philip Benstead »

thirdcrank wrote:
Philip Benstead wrote: ... Given that none of current trustee were involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permite the trustees to reflect on the decision making process


I'm not sure if this is addressed to me and even less sure about the question being asked.

The fundamental point to me is that a club - organised for the mutual benefit of the membership - was irreversibly converted into a charity - which must be organised for the benefit of the wider society. Against a background of an uninterested membership, the conversion was presented as making no difference to the club side of the organisation but a no-brainer in terms of things like grants and contracts from the public sector.

Let's imagine somebody had decided to establish ie from zero, a charity to promote cycling among the general public; how many cyclists would sign up to pay regularly quite significant sums into that? With or without a "free" mag?

The trustees are legally bound to act in the interests of the charity.

Re decision making: the continued existence of the mag was partly decided on a questionnare which more or less asked people to rank the benefits. The decision to scrap the discounted pensioner rate sounds like a leap into the unknown and may be a big test of the altruism of that part of the membership



IMHO

I welcomed the setting up of the separate charity. But even before that, there was another charity setup by the CTC in 1970s called Cycle Touring and Countryside Trust.. This was before the days of the Gift Aid scheme it was suggested at that time that that the CTC should use the charity to obtain grants to promote cycling for the greater good. The Council reject that because the Council did not wish to lose control and their viewpoint was narrower in terms of the role the CTC.

With the setting of the new charity, the control factor was eliminated. But then senior management and some new councillors viewed the conversion to a full charity was a good idea. During this process, a small group of councillors in conjunction with senior managers hijack the agenda by disregarding standing orders and procedures to push the charity agenda and by distributing misleading or incomplete information about the pros and con of the conversion. This disregarding of the rules including multiplication of the council elections and the rejection of any hostile motions to being place on the agenda for the AGM.

I believe that current councillors/trustees are innocent of any these charges. They are trying their best job in most part to do their best but often lack the background experience of the CLUB at the local level. I suspect most if not all of these trustees are unaware of these issues.

IMHO

From my experience in part, some of the problems of the CTC is that some groups of the CTC are unwelcoming to new people or are clicky or have a very narrow view of cycling. But also the CTC Council itself was part of the problem going back to the days of Len James who was the chair of the council who resign due to his frustration with the council. Later, in recent times some councillors just did not engage their brain and just put their had up without thinking or reading the material or understand the issues.

If you look at the charity debate many of the contributors with the most minor of information had successfully analyse the issues and possible solutions. But their view was disregarded.

FACT I have been told by reliable sources that both theeVCHARITY COMMISSION AND HMRC were surprised that the CTC want to convert to a full charity, that stated that we could do all we wanted to under the system of the CLUB as a company limited by guarantee and the part charity. The council and senior management would NOT listen.

I am in favour of the good work the Cycling UK is doing, but I object to downplaying of the local groups and the past disregarding of rules and CTC member's, also lack of transparency of board of trust activities to members plus the lack of contact between the trustees and members.

Let hope our new leader of the council the new chair will bring some much-needed changes.
Last edited by Philip Benstead on 24 Jan 2021, 12:35pm, edited 2 times in total.
Philip Benstead | Life Member Former CTC Councillor/Trustee
Organizing events and representing cyclists' in southeast since 1988
Bikeability Instructor/Mechanic
Jdsk
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Jdsk »

Philip Benstead wrote:Given that none of current trustee were involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permite the trustees to reflect on the decision making process

Cycling UK should examine options for the future, as should every other organisation. Members have mechanisms to support that.

But I wouldn't support axe grinding over anything that happened in the past, that would be a waste of time and money and effort.

Jonathan
thirdcrank
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by thirdcrank »

Jdsk wrote:
Philip Benstead wrote:Given that none of current trustee were involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permite the trustees to reflect on the decision making process

Cycling UK should examine options for the future, as should every other organisation. Members have mechanisms to support that.

But I wouldn't support axe grinding over anything that happened in the past, that would be a waste of time and money and effort.

Jonathan


I agree totally about not dwelling on the past - as I've posted, water under the bridge, but some of the issues emerging now are, indeed, only just emerging eg "the end of Gift Aid" so must be appropriate for discussion and the way they were presented / spun in the run up to conversion is inevitably a factor, if only because expectations built up then are being disappointed now. Beyond that, quite a lot of the gripes about cUk on here seem to be based on a complete misunderstanding of the role and organisation of charities. If people are still uninformed about that after all this time, it's rather sad, IMO, that comment on here is the only source of info.
Psamathe
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Psamathe »

(Not a member so just my personal thought): whilst axe grinding might not be useful, looking back and analysing reasons, outcomes, promises, failings, etc. can help everybody learn from past mistakes. Learning from past mistakes allows safeguards to be put in place whilst failing to learn from past mistakes makes them destined to be repeated.

Ian
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Philip Benstead
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Philip Benstead »

UPDATED

Philip Benstead wrote:
thirdcrank wrote:
Philip Benstead wrote: ... Given that none of the current trustee was involved in the original process oo charity conversion I was wondering whether a root branch review of the benefit and disbenefits the conversion as brought. I would permit the trustees to reflect on the decision-making process


I'm not sure if this is addressed to me and even less sure about the question being asked.

The fundamental point to me is that a club - organised for the mutual benefit of the membership - was irreversibly converted into a charity - which must be organised for the benefit of the wider society. Against a background of an uninterested membership, the conversion was presented as making no difference to the club side of the organisation but a no-brainer in terms of things like grants and contracts from the public sector.

Let's imagine somebody had decided to establish ie from zero, a charity to promote cycling among the general public; how many cyclists would sign up to pay regularly quite significant sums into that? With or without a "free" mag?

The trustees are legally bound to act in the interests of the charity.

Re decision making: the continued existence of the mag was partly decided on a questionnare which more or less asked people to rank the benefits. The decision to scrap the discounted pensioner rate sounds like a leap into the unknown and maybe a big test of the altruism of that part of the membership



IMHO

I welcomed the setting up of the separate charity. But even before that, there was another charity set up by the CTC in 1970s called Cycle Touring and Countryside Trust.. This was before the days of the Gift Aid scheme it was suggested at that time that that the CTC should use the charity to obtain grants to promote cycling for the greater good. The Council reject that because the Council did not wish to lose control and their viewpoint was narrower in terms of the role the CTC.

With the setting of the new charity, the control factor was eliminated. But then senior management and some new councillors viewed the conversion to a full charity was a good idea. During this process, a small group of councillors in conjunction with senior managers hijack the agenda by disregarding standing orders and procedures to push the charity agenda and by distributing misleading or incomplete information about the pros and con of the conversion. This disregarding of the rules including multiplication of the council elections and the rejection of any hostile motions to being place on the agenda for the AGM.

I believe that current councillors/trustees are innocent of any these charges. They are trying their best job in most part to do their best but often lack the background experience of the CLUB at the local level. I suspect most if not all of these trustees are unaware of these issues.

IMHO

From my experience in part, some of the problems of the CTC is that some groups of the CTC are unwelcoming to new people or are clicky or have a very narrow view of cycling. But also the CTC Council itself was part of the problem going back to the days of Len James who was the chair of the council who resign due to his frustration with the council. Later, in recent times some councillors just did not engage their brain and just put their had up without thinking or reading the material or understand the issues.

If you look at the charity debate many of the contributors with the most minor of information had successfully analyse the issues and possible solutions. But their view was disregarded.

FACT I have been told by reliable sources that both theeVCHARITY COMMISSION AND HMRC were surprised that the CTC want to convert to a full charity, that stated that we could do all we wanted to under the system of the CLUB as a company limited by guarantee and the part charity. The council and senior management would NOT listen.

I am in favour of the good work the Cycling UK is doing, but I object to downplaying of the local groups and the past disregarding of rules and CTC member's, also lack of transparency of board of trust activities to members plus the lack of contact between the trustees and members.

Let hope our new leader of the council the new chair will bring some much-needed changes.
Philip Benstead | Life Member Former CTC Councillor/Trustee
Organizing events and representing cyclists' in southeast since 1988
Bikeability Instructor/Mechanic
Jdsk
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Re: The end of Gift Aid

Post by Jdsk »

What are you saying... that's a very long quote of your own words that's labelled "Updated" but doesn't say what has changed.

Jonathan
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