Britain’s bloated charities – I apologise, I was wrong – very wrong

Regular readers will know that I’m currently researching and writing a book attacking what I believe to be huge amounts of waste and greed within Britain’s bloated charity sector

Britain has over 195,289 registered charities. In my humble opinion, that’s at least 150,000 too many. These registered charities employ over one million people – more than our police and armed forces together and almost as many as the NHS. In my humble opinion that’s too many people. These charities claim that over £8 out of every £10 donated gets spent on ‘charitable activities’. I believe that’s a £30bn lie and in reality at most £5 out of every £10 donated really goes to ‘charitable activities’

Readers will also know that my agent’s reader slammed my book proposal claiming that “his total of charities surely includes all kinds of worthy organisations whose tax status happens to be charitable, but which actually perform different roles: schools, churches, hospitals, emergency services, community groups, nurseries, universities, etc. If this is true, then it’s far less of a concern.”

Well, the reader was right and I was wrong. When I found that there were 195,289 registered charities in Britain, I was so flabbergasted by this huge number that I stopped looking. Stupid me. Because yesterday I stumbled across another 191,000 charities that I hadn’t noticed before.

These 191,000 extra charities are charities which don’t need to register either because they are too small or due to legal exemptions.

To quote a government report: “In addition there are about another 191,000 unregistered charities. Around 80,000 of these 191,000 unregistered charities fall below the threshold for registration, currently set at an annual income of £5,000. Most of the remaining 111,000 unregistered charities are ‘excepted charities’ – charities that have previously been excepted by regulation or order with an income of £100,000 or less, such as local parish councils affiliated with the Church of England and other mainstream Christian organisations, scout and guide groups, and armed forces charities.”

So, that brings the total number of ‘charities’ in Britain to more than 385,289. That’s ridiculous!

As for my agent’s reader who slammed my book claiming I had overestimated the number of charities – I wonder if he or she would like to apologise?

By the way, as I’ve lost money on my last two books, I’m hesitant about losing even more writing a book exposing greed and waste in Britain’s bloated charities. Moreover, my wife quite rightly keeps telling me that I’m a total idiot writing books that lose money. So, if any reader knows someone rich who would be prepared to put up say £2,000 to sponsor me to write, publish and market my charity book – please get in touch.