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Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 2 Feb 2010, 12:05pm
by Karen Sutton
Regulator wrote:Some questions you may want to ask your local councillor if s/he e-mails you and assures you everything is OK with the CTC accounts and accounting system, and that you should vote for the charitable option.
In the 2008/9 accounts, there are payments totalling £863,599 from the Club to the Trust. An explanation of this sum was given at the Council meeting on 23 January 2010. The Chair of the Management Committee explained that, of the £860,000 (rounded down for ease):
• £407,000 was for ‘services’ supplied by the Trust to the Club
• £453,000 was a ‘subvention*’ from the Club to the Trust
You might want to ask your Councillor to explain (and itemise):
1. what ‘services’ were provided for the sum of £407,000 and what each of those services cost; and,
2. why the Club is giving the Trust a ‘subvention’ (a grant of financial aid) of £453,000? What is it for and why is it necessary, given the assertion in the recent e-mails that the Trust is making money on its contracts?
Greg,
If someone from your "constituency" were to ask you those questions, could you answer them? If not then the other Councillors won't be able either
Another assertion made in several of the e-mails is that the Trust has ‘saved the Club £430,000’. Can your Councillor is explain what these ‘savings’ actually are and how the figure of £430,000 is reached?
Those who are assuring you that everything is OK and the Trust isn't losing money, or who are suggesting that some councillors and ex-councillors are acting maliciously, must surely be able to answer these questions as they relate to substantial sums of money and go to the heart of the concerns people are expressing over the financial situation.
If they're saying everything is OK then they should be able to give coherent and detailed answers to these questions.
*(A ‘subvention’ is defined as: ‘(1) Provision of help, aid, or support. (2) An endowment or a subsidy, as that given by a government to an institution for research; a grant of financial aid.’)
Greg,
If someone from your "constituency" were to ask you those questions, could you answer them? If not then the other Councillors won't be able either
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 2 Feb 2010, 12:11pm
by Regulator
Karen Sutton wrote:Regulator wrote:Some questions you may want to ask your local councillor if s/he e-mails you and assures you everything is OK with the CTC accounts and accounting system, and that you should vote for the charitable option.
In the 2008/9 accounts, there are payments totalling £863,599 from the Club to the Trust. An explanation of this sum was given at the Council meeting on 23 January 2010. The Chair of the Management Committee explained that, of the £860,000 (rounded down for ease):
• £407,000 was for ‘services’ supplied by the Trust to the Club
• £453,000 was a ‘subvention*’ from the Club to the Trust
You might want to ask your Councillor to explain (and itemise):
1. what ‘services’ were provided for the sum of £407,000 and what each of those services cost; and,
2. why the Club is giving the Trust a ‘subvention’ (a grant of financial aid) of £453,000? What is it for and why is it necessary, given the assertion in the recent e-mails that the Trust is making money on its contracts?
Greg,
If someone from your "constituency" were to ask you those questions, could you answer them? If not then the other Councillors won't be able either
Another assertion made in several of the e-mails is that the Trust has ‘saved the Club £430,000’. Can your Councillor is explain what these ‘savings’ actually are and how the figure of £430,000 is reached?
Those who are assuring you that everything is OK and the Trust isn't losing money, or who are suggesting that some councillors and ex-councillors are acting maliciously, must surely be able to answer these questions as they relate to substantial sums of money and go to the heart of the concerns people are expressing over the financial situation.
If they're saying everything is OK then they should be able to give coherent and detailed answers to these questions.
*(A ‘subvention’ is defined as: ‘(1) Provision of help, aid, or support. (2) An endowment or a subsidy, as that given by a government to an institution for research; a grant of financial aid.’)
Greg,
If someone from your "constituency" were to ask you those questions, could you answer them? If not then the other Councillors won't be able either
I've asked the questions but can't seem to get any straight answers. That's why I have concerns over the assertions that are being made about how sound the finances are.
Perhaps the people making those assertions abut how everything is tickety-boo and transparent, such as the David Robinson, Welna Bowden and Martin Cockersole, can supply the answers...
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 2 Feb 2010, 12:52pm
by irc
According to the 2007-2008 accounts posted on the Charity Commission website in 2007-2008 the Trust had 19 employees with an average costs including salary, pension, and social security cost of just under 30k per employee. Assuming that the services provided to CTC required say 5 Trust employees working full time to provide them thats £150k in staff costs. If the rent charged by the the Trust to the CTC for use office space at HQ was say 50k a year then that only adds up to 200k.
407k sounds to me like an huge amount to me. I'd be very interested to see a breakdown of it.
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/re ... 30_e_c.pdf
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 2 Feb 2010, 1:10pm
by Karen Sutton
I was first told that they can't provide more detailed accounts because they don't have them. Then I was told that they don't want to disclose detailed accounts for the Trust because they don't want the 'opposition' to be able to see what the bids are from the Trust for contracting work. But the Trust is already losing contracts (e.g. The Cycle Trainers database)
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 10:03am
by psmiffy
Questions
From reading the information available it would seem that the Government “contracts” that the “Trust” have been undertaking are predominantly of a “Fund Matching” nature. Is this true?
If it is true then assuming there is a mandate for the “Club” to provide monies for the matching then the disparity in costs is not unreasonable. Is this the case?
However, where fund matching “contracts” (projects would be a better word) are being undertaken has funding from the “Club” over and above that necessary for “matching” been given?
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 10:13am
by Regulator
psmiffy wrote:Questions
From reading the information available it would seem that the Government “contracts” that the “Trust” have been undertaking are predominantly of a “Fund Matching” nature. Is this true?
If it is true then assuming there is a mandate for the “Club” to provide monies for the matching then the disparity in costs is not unreasonable. Is this the case?
However, where fund matching “contracts” (projects would be a better word) are being undertaken has funding from the “Club” over and above that necessary for “matching” been given?
Another questions should surely be:
"If the majority of the projects have been on a 'match funding' basis, how can it be said that CTC has made money on these projects, as has been claimed?"
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 10:31am
by irc
Regulator wrote:psmiffy wrote:Questions
From reading the information available it would seem that the Government “contracts” that the “Trust” have been undertaking are predominantly of a “Fund Matching” nature. Is this true?
If it is true then assuming there is a mandate for the “Club” to provide monies for the matching then the disparity in costs is not unreasonable. Is this the case?
However, where fund matching “contracts” (projects would be a better word) are being undertaken has funding from the “Club” over and above that necessary for “matching” been given?
Another questions should surely be:
"If the majority of the projects have been on a 'match funding' basis, how can it be said that CTC has made money on these projects, as has been claimed?"
On this "match funding" basis the more "successful" the Trust is the more it will need to be subsidised by the CTC.
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 10:44am
by psmiffy
That was where I was going - "Fund Matching" contracts are not "Contracts" as we would know them - I cannot see that there would be an element set aside for "Profit" in them (Is the CTC Trust in this respect a non-profit making organisation?)
Obviously though if the "Club" is mandated to provide the monies then there is no problem.
However, subsidising Goverment "Contracts" over and above the alloted Fund Matching while being altruistic could be seen as being a little dodgy.
Supplementary Question - What proportion of the "Trust"'s turnover is from non-Fund Matching Contracts.
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 11:12am
by Simon L6
psmiffy wrote:That was where I was going - "Fund Matching" contracts are not "Contracts" as we would know them - I cannot see that there would be an element set aside for "Profit" in them (Is the CTC Trust in this respect a non-profit making organisation?)
Obviously though if the "Club" is mandated to provide the monies then there is no problem.
However, subsidising Goverment "Contracts" over and above the alloted Fund Matching while being altruistic could be seen as being a little dodgy.
Supplementary Question - What proportion of the "Trust"'s turnover is from non-Fund Matching Contracts.
psmiffy - this is, of course, a sensible question, but, in fairness, some of 'our' match funding is provided by third parties.
The big difficulty is that any figures you get are not entirely reliable - it's no secret that Colin Quemby, retired accountant, former Vice President of the CTC and still on the board of Holidays and Tours, has been working the published and unpublished figures over very thoroughly, and considerable question marks remain against substantial items in the budget. I've mentioned the figure for 'Support for Volunteeers' in the Trust budget. Perhaps John Catt can tell us
precisely what this £90,000 was spent on? Why did the 'loan' of £388,000 appear in the accounts last year?
I'm telling you this - the person who tells you they have all the answers isn't giving you a straight answer!
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 1:48pm
by psmiffy
One of the things that I find very difficult to grasp is that there should be any dispute whatsoever about what monies are used for what - I have managed projects and budgets for many years and every moment of my time, what I have spent on projects and my project income is recorded meticuously plus at regular intervals I have had to submit to a "trial by database" - this is fairly basic stuff and if it is not being done it needs fixing before there are any thoughts of moving to a unified position
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 1:53pm
by Regulator
psmiffy wrote:One of the things that I find very difficult to grasp is that there should be any dispute whatsoever about what monies are used for what - I have managed projects and budgets for many years and every moment of my time, what I have spent on projects and my project income is recorded meticuously plus at regular intervals I have had to submit to a "trial by database" - this is fairly basic stuff and if it is not being done it needs fixing before there are any thoughts of moving to a unified position
CTC does not project account - well, not in the sense that you or I or most of the business world would understand it. I share exactly the same concerns as you over this. This is in part why I am opposed to the unification proposal going forward at this time.
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 2:17pm
by psmiffy
I am sorry but I am almost speechless – The heart of an organisation may be its people but the soul is good financial control – without it you cannot make any sense of what is going on – for the want of better words –what is cost effective – I’m not saying that you do away with anything that makes a loss because there is a management or political decision on what is of “value” or is cost effective - but without being able to measure value you are lost
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 2:37pm
by Simon L6
psmiffy wrote:I am sorry but I am almost speechless – The heart of an organisation may be its people but the soul is good financial control – without it you cannot make any sense of what is going on – for the want of better words –what is cost effective – I’m not saying that you do away with anything that makes a loss because there is a management or political decision on what is of “value” or is cost effective - but without being able to measure value you are lost
I hope you'll forgive me, but your post has me laughing out loud - although the laughter is tinged with hysteria.
There's a special kind of expression that visits the face of anybody who discovers that the CTC hasn't historically accounted for projects - although Barry Flood is insisting that it happens. It's a sort of 'open' sign for flies. If you have tonsils they get a good airing.
The question is, though....why? . The 'profitability' or otherwise of projects depends on what is charged against them. That's why I keep on banging on about the £90k (support for volunteers and events) - and appealing again for an answer. And, of course, as members, we look at the budgets and ask how the sums expended align with our experience. Once again....
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 3 Feb 2010, 2:48pm
by psmiffy
Simon L6 - My intention was not to amuse you – but if I did so be it – Though I am afraid that having learnt that CTC does not Project Manage I have become more sympathetic to your crusade to discover what the £90k was for – though the evidence seems to be that you may never get a satisfactory answer
Re: how much did the Club donate to the Trust in 2008/2009?
Posted: 4 Feb 2010, 8:06pm
by Fonant
Simon L6 wrote:Once again....
Simon, could you explain what these accounts are, and how you obtained them?
Are they "official" accounts or quickly-drawn-up estimates that may contain errors?
The "re-forecast" figures for the annual donation from Club to Trust in 2008/2009 are different in each account (£872,628 versus £873,562): are these really genuine documents?