I've a weather eye for big corporations taking the mickey, of course. But as a politician I've also noticed that most private enterprise owners are paid a fraction of what the bosses of large and powerful charities are.Or even small and powerful ones, for that matter.
Imagine, for example, you are the CEO of a private company with normal volunteered income from the public of around £5,000 per year* and staffed by just 8 people. Do you think you could justify a salary for yourself of over £80k?
You see, the latest ASH accounts are now available at the Charity Commission website and that's precisely the position of Deborah Arnott. Nice work if you can get it!
In these difficult economic times; with the state purse being tightened everywhere; savage cuts to state expenditure as we are routinely informed by the Guardian et al (ASH currently sponge £150k per annum) life is still pretty sweet for Debs. Her 2012 salary was bracketed between between £70k to £80k, but an increase in her time at the trough means she now trousers £80k to £90k (page 22).
OK, perhaps it was just a few quid which tipped her over the threshold. Except that the 2004 accounts showed her earning between £50k and £51k! Wow! That's one hell of a jump, isn't it? A minimum 60% increase in 9 years, plus uniquely enhanced pension (page 20)? Hands up anyone out there who can claim anything even close.
But then, in 2004, Debs didn't have two jobs as I remarked on yesterday. Before, it was just about tobacco, but since she is now secretary to a host of organisations in the Smokefree Coalition all dedicated to placing as many obstacles in front of e-cigs as humanly possible, I suppose her rapidly expanding salary is more understandable.
Ensuring continuity of profits for tobacco control's pharma sponsors while also protecting their favoured (but comparatively useless) method of quit or die against a hugely superior e-cig opponent must take some doing.
Cheap at half the price, eh?
* Boosted this year by a one-off willed legacy of £125k
7 comments:
I find it utterly shameful that the bulk of the 300K spent on ASH salaries last year was extracted from unwitting members of the public who believed that they were donating to genuine charitable causes. This is wrong.
On Page 12 we find
"11. To be sensitive to the concerns of the smoker."
0/10 on that one,Debs
Also,for the pedants
"5. To ensure all tobacco control policies contribute, as far as is possible, to health improvements, the reduction of health inequalities, poverty and social exclusion."
So health is not the main objective - official
Success indicators
"6. Smoking prevalence will start to decline again and decline at a faster rate than over the last ten years, in particular amongst pregnant women, routine and manual workers and the most disadvantaged."
So that's a failure,then?
"So health is not the main objective - official"
Extract from CRUK (ASH funders) blog comments in June
“As it stands, it’s far from clear whether this regulatory move will, as some have suggested, lead inevitably to vapers being forced en masse back to smoking”
This comment by Alison Cox shows a dismayingly poor approach to the issue. CRUK are supporting a move despite being “far from clear” whether or not it will kill several hundred thousand people. Personally, before I supported any proposed legislation I’d want to be absolutely certain that it WOULDN’T result in a death toll about equal to a nuclear bombardment of Manchester.
It’s clear that leaving e-cigarettes under existing consumer protection regulation is NOT going to force users back to smoking, so why are Alison and CRUK being so cavalier about the risks of the MHRA proposal? Faced with one alternative that has a “far from clear” chance of killing 650,000 or so people, and another that definitely won’t, I wouldn’t have thought it was actually a difficult choice.
"...poverty and social exclusion."
Well she may have scored 0/10 on number 11 but she scored 11/10 on the above part of number five, having beggared smokers through lobbying for punitive cigarette taxes and has excelled with the propaganda casting smokers as social pariahs.
Glad you had a good root through the document, some enlightening stuff in there eh?
I noticed the smoking prevalence bit too. It kinda makes out the BBC to be inaccurate in saying "smoking rates are at their lowest ever level" when they're not.
It also suggests ASH know that e-cigs are going to make a big impact in coming years and are positioning themselves to claim the success .. despite moving heaven and earth to block them! Wankers.
Peter Kellner!!!
Can we just stop sodding around with this blogging malarkey and get out on the streets - this is just taking the piss.
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