Strangely, the largest award of all in the country, £864,881 to ASH Wales [doc], wasn't mentioned.
It might interest you to know that one of the Big Lottery Fund's board members is a lady named Maureen McGinn. There is also a Maureen McGinn who is chair of the board of ASH Scotland, and the pictures provided on both sites strongly suggest that they are one and the same person.
Board member being from ASH and the biggest award going to its sister organisation in Wales?
Isn't that an amazing coincidence, eh?
13 comments:
I am at a loss for words. Wait... no I'm not.
I suppose CRUK wasn't giving ASH Wales enough money...
Naturally, nobody -- not the public, nor the media -- will give a flying fuck about this.
Well spotted - rampant bloody corruption using our money
What better cause than your own? Nobody with an ounce of intelligence or integrity would donate to the national lottery.
Good spot. It seems there's a lot of it about.
This lady seems to live off charities herself. The list of charities she is linked with is impressive. She earns money by doing nothing ....
Can we not report this as a fraud ?
Fraud@biglotteryfund.org.uk
If you're on Twitter, go straight to the top.
http://twitter.com/#!/peterwanless
"The services will be tailored to young people at each stage of
adolescent tobacco use, through utilising mixed methods of engagement including
peer and group support, on line, text messaging, and a telephone helpline."
£864,000 to do this? WTF! That's a service with bleedin' knobs on! Don't believe a word of it. Don't reckon this would stand up to any proper auditing. More a case for the fraud squad!
"Her earlier career included periods working for a charity, a trade union and in central and local government."
Sadly Maureen McGinn is not the only person involved who has never experienced a real job. People who have worked as civil servants or at NGOs all their lives genuinely come to think that this type of type of thing is money well spent. They have no idea as to the value of anything. Why would they?
Thanks for the clarification, Peter. Many could take the word 'direct' as an operative one, but I'm happy to trust your integrity.
The problem is that it all looks so incestuous, doesn't it? Especially since you also handed ASH Scotland the maximum award last year of shrapnel under £500k. Are there really no other potential board members available but those with links to organisations you give money to? Hardly surprising that it niffs like a rotten herring to yer average Joe, is it? ;)
Wanless has gone to great pains to attempt to imply an orderly and impartial board - and to defend Mc Ginn.
Naturally he concedes that you (and many readers of this blog) may not welcome their "award" to ASH.
My understanding is the £865k "award" was the largest made and was not made public until DP brought it to our attention.
Whatever the semantics, the fact is the system he defends is not transparent and Wanless' faux indignation does nothing to change my opinion that Big Lottery is being manipulated.
ASH has never been and never will be a "worthy cause". Had Wanless and his "Board" conducted any meaningful research into this organisation he would never attempt to defend them or their "representatives".
ASH is as "worthy" as Redwatch.
Mr. Wanless, nice of you to stop in and offer a reply and clarification, but could you further clarify why the largest award given (the one to ASH) was totally ignored in the press-release reports which I believe the Lottery put out? I asked the question on your Facebook page, but I believe it was totally ignored.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
This is strange. Mr. Wanless obviously came by and was concerned enough about this blog that he left a clarifying comment. Are we to believe that once dropping such a comment he wandered off to the daisy fields and didn't concern himself about checking back to see the reactions to it or respond to other comments?
Or does he simply have no adequate response?
- MJM
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