Cycling UK Forum

workhard wrote:Rather than using the SORP regulated financial statements as published in annual reports and given to the Charity Commissioners what this member would like to see is the SOFA / management accounts used for running the Club and the Trust so as to understand how the transactions contained therein relate to the reality of the operation. Unlikely to happen. But surely a Councillor could have oversight of a copy if they wanted.

The 'nay' campaign has access to the management accounts, and an accountant is working on them. It's proving an uphill task.

The £872,000 figure comes straight from National Office by the way...........

thirdcrank wrote:John Catt

The following is from your link above, (which is why I have addressed this to you.)

The average subscription rate for 2008/09 was £24.36.

Do you know how that is calculated? Is it simply total subscription income ÷ total membership? It does seem to be a lot nearer to the reduced rate than to the full adult rate. I do appreciate that a lot of OAPs are taxpayers (I am one myself) and that for a joint subscription a tax payer can Gift Aid the total sub, even if the partner is not a taxpayer, but such a low avarage seems to suggest that there may be a lot of non-taxpayers among the CTC membership.

I Assume this is what your are referring to:

At this stage of the process, Council cannot give a definitive answer, but the scale of possible Gift Aid annual income to CTC is shown in the table below. The average subscription rate for 2008/09 was £24.36. For the purpose of illustration, we have selected just 4 possible amounts that might be eligible for Gift Aid up to the current average rate. Previous publications relating to this review took a figure in the lower section of the table (£57,000) as a prudent estimate of the possible additional income to CTC, but higher figures are possible.

In which case the answer is no as I haven't been involved in compiling the figures. Could I suggest that you email
mmembers.matter@ctc.org.uk with the query.

have the CASS calculations of Gift Aid been published? My understanding is that we have to sign up as individuals, and given the rather dismal collecton of e-mail addresses, this might be a step too far for Arvato - has any allowance been made for administration? Was any thought given to the Royal Yachting Association model for Gift Aid? Will Life Members be able to sign up for Gift Aid, and how much will those Life Members be able to Gift Aid? Will non-taxpayers (as in retired members) be able to sign up for Gift Aid?

Simon L6 wrote:have the CASS calculations of Gift Aid been published? My understanding is that we have to sign up as individuals, and given the rather dismal collecton of e-mail addresses, this might be a step too far for Arvato - has any allowance been made for administration? Was any thought given to the Royal Yachting Association model for Gift Aid? Will Life Members be able to sign up for Gift Aid, and how much will those Life Members be able to Gift Aid? Will non-taxpayers (as in retired members) be able to sign up for Gift Aid?

I take it you have looked at "What about Gift Aid? Why is the potential gain from Gift Aid not yet known in detail?" http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=5363#six .

I think this makes clear that only members paying tax can qualify for gift aid and shows a table that provides some estimates.

Re. CASS the only figure I am aware of is in their report http://www.ctc.org.uk/resources/About_Us/Charity_CASS_Review.pdf section 5.19

Re. the membership service, this will have to be robust if Gift Aid is to be claimed and of course the receipt of Gift Aid will provide a strong incentive for ensuring that it is. How we manage the membership system is an issue regardless of our charitable status.

Simon L6 wrote:have the CASS calculations of Gift Aid been published? My understanding is that we have to sign up as individuals, and given the rather dismal collecton of e-mail addresses, this might be a step too far for Arvato - has any allowance been made for administration? Was any thought given to the Royal Yachting Association model for Gift Aid? Will Life Members be able to sign up for Gift Aid, and how much will those Life Members be able to Gift Aid? Will non-taxpayers (as in retired members) be able to sign up for Gift Aid?

Do the IT systems currently in use have the necessary provision for Gift Aid. Some of the commercial membership packages in use do as standard, with others it is a chargeable add-on module. Given the Gift Aid side of life can be quite a burden, though a highly cost effective one, as I know 1st hand having spent 3 years running the supporter care unit of an international aid agency, I'd expect the 3rd party, Arvato, to up their fees and internal admin costs/head count to increase in connection with Gift Aid claims and auditing.

Simon L6 wrote:

workhard wrote:Rather than using the SORP regulated financial statements as published in annual reports and given to the Charity Commissioners what this member would like to see is the SOFA / management accounts used for running the Club and the Trust so as to understand how the transactions contained therein relate to the reality of the operation. Unlikely to happen. But surely a Councillor could have oversight of a copy if they wanted.

The 'nay' campaign has access to the management accounts, and an accountant is working on them. It's proving an uphill task.

The £872,000 figure comes straight from National Office by the way...........

I'm banging on about this because being a 'charity wonk' myself I'm all to aware that SORP can result in a somewhat opaque picture, from a lay person's point of view, of charity expenditure on the costs of admin and fundraising. On one level I'm happy if the club were to donate a substantial proportion of its income to the Trust, with the foreknowledge of the contributing members or their elected representatives, provided and only provided that the Club's funding, governance and operational activities are generously funded and the money donated to the Trust is used effectively to bring about real change in line with the charities aims and objectives. Neither seems to be demonstrably the case at present.

My bugbear about SORP is this. Take a typical charity model with some back office people, some fundraisers, and some people concerned with the delivery of services/projects. Say this charity claims to spend 10p in the £ of each donation on admin and fundraising in its SORP accounts. If a donor were to spend a week or two working alongside people in the service delivery/project side of things they would most probably observe many people in the field doing tasks which Mr or Mrs J Public would regard as being purely administrative. In fact in some cases they might observe individuals whose sole function 100% full time is what a chap on the Clapham omnibus would regard as administrative. However the costs of these staff are not, under SORP, recorded as fundraising and admin because the posts relate solely to the delivery of services/projects. SORP really only includes the 'back office' administrative functions such as IT, Finance, Facilities, HR, Executive and Fundraising in funding/admin. Joe Public seems blissfully unaware of this and very few charities are keen to advise him otherwise. So SORP can tend towards a situation where it appears a charity's 'overheads', as a donor might define them, are admirably low according to their accounts whilst the reality, from a more pragmatic perspective, is quite significantly different.

I can only add, Workhard, that a view of the Minority Report should be required reading for all who share your concerns, and all who haven't got around to sharing them yet..

http://savethectc.blogspot.com/ is amateurish, but has the draft Minority Report on it. The grown-up savethectc website should be with us within a week.

This came in an email from the NW councillors (Welna Bowden and David Robinson) just now:

In the latest edition of Cycle you will see two articles 'For' and 'Against' the proposal. In the 'against' article the impression is wrongly given that the club have to support loss making charitable activities. The reverse is in fact the case. With our present charitable activities and the overhead costs, the CTC Trust has, in the latest accounts, saved the club £430k . In the accounts, monies transferred from the club to the trust are for member services provided by the trust.

Sounds complicated we know; and that's one of the reasons why converting to a unified charity will bring greater clarity. Incidentally we have full confidence in the CTC's financial management. As part of the accountability process our financial advisor and chair of a management committee, both of whom are highly qualified financial experts, have examined the accounts in detail and confirm the positive figures presented. None of our charitable contracts are 'loss making'.

The financial benefits from becoming a full charity, partly with the opportunity of gift aid, will increase resources for the CTC to promote cycling. As your North West councillors we feel that this will provide increasing financial resources to our local member groups to support the excellent activities that they offer to you as members.

AndyB wrote:This came in an email from the NW councillors (Welna Bowden and David Robinson) just now:

In the latest edition of Cycle you will see two articles 'For' and 'Against' the proposal. In the 'against' article the impression is wrongly given that the club have to support loss making charitable activities. The reverse is in fact the case. With our present charitable activities and the overhead costs, the CTC Trust has, in the latest accounts, saved the club £430k . In the accounts, monies transferred from the club to the trust are for member services provided by the trust.

Sounds complicated we know; and that's one of the reasons why converting to a unified charity will bring greater clarity. Incidentally we have full confidence in the CTC's financial management. As part of the accountability process our financial advisor and chair of a management committee, both of whom are highly qualified financial experts, have examined the accounts in detail and confirm the positive figures presented. None of our charitable contracts are 'loss making'.

The financial benefits from becoming a full charity, partly with the opportunity of gift aid, will increase resources for the CTC to promote cycling. As your North West councillors we feel that this will provide increasing financial resources to our local member groups to support the excellent activities that they offer to you as members.

Just read this as well. Who do we believe? This pretty fundamental and you would imagine should be a question of fact rather than opinion.

I've received a similar broadside from the Yorks and Humberside councillor. Certain allegations are made that I think Simon should have the chance to refute before I paste them here.

The crux of the matter seems to be how transparent the club are going to be about where the money has gone and is going in future. At the moment my vote will still be a resounding No. Until all the money is accounted for and a commitment given to being absolutely clear about future spending I can't see how members can pass the motion in all conscience.

Further to the above post, while I have no qualms about the CTC emailing me direct, I can't recall another occasion on which they have done so. That leads me to believe they are very keen to bounce this one through and are prepared to use whatever tactics to do so.

Can I request that the No Campaign are given similar access to email addresses? After all, the club wouldn't want to be seen to be paying lip service to even-handedness in the club magazine, only to embark on dirty tricks in private.

geocycle wrote:This pretty fundamental and you would imagine should be a question of fact rather than opinion.

Quite. It's a little worrying that there's so much apparent disagreement over the actual numbers involved. Either one party is knowingly misinterpreting the numbers, or the accounts aren't clear enough to be understood in a consistent manner.

How can we decide who is telling the truth?

geocycle wrote:

AndyB wrote:This came in an email from the NW councillors (Welna Bowden and David Robinson) just now:

In the accounts, monies transferred from the club to the trust are for member services provided by the trust.

Where can I find a breakdown of this Trust expenditure, so I can see the money coming back to the club as member services?

The Charity Commission site has a rough breakdown by type of activity, and staff costs are specified in a note (I think they must be included somehow in the activity totals in the main accounts). But the categories are very broad and vague, so I can't see how much the trust spends on member services.

Why does the Trust provide member services to the club, in return for an end-of-year account-balancing donation? Surely it would make more sense for the Club to provide member services, and donate any spare resources to the Trust for charitable work? Why the need for the money merry-go-round?

I'd agree with Fonant and glueman. As advised to much earlier I mailed each of my regional councillors and received personalised replies very rapidly. Except for for the one who is pro the motion. He did not reply until today and the way it is written suggests that it is circular and is addressed to "Dear CTC Members". I can't complain about him contacting me as I asked for an opinion but the timing seems odd in view of the above comments. I would like to beleive that the anti movement will be afforded and accept the same level of access so I am now waiting to receive an email from them.

Scanning various message boards it seems all the councillors are singing a similar tune - pure coincidence no doubt

I'm sorry to see the No campaign's concerns being viewed as rabble rousing by a metropolitan elite. If it weren't for Greg and Simon's efforts (neither of whom I know personally) the financial position would have remained hidden. The direction the club is moving in should be a concern to all members, wherever they live.