PRISON SERVICE CHARITY FUND

COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT

JANUARY 1st. - DECEMBER 31st. 2009.

Those of you who attended last year's meeting, will recall that the credit crunch was at the forefront of our minds.  We were anticipating a year of high activity on the part of the larger UK charities, many of whom had sustained quite painful losses due to failed overseas investments.  We thought they would spend the early months of 2009, contacting people such as ourselves in an effort to recoup their losses.  In fact, this did not happen; however there have been signs that some of the larger organisations have taken steps to reduce their costs in other ways.  For example, the annual raffle held by the children's charity Home House, usually offered a new car as the first prize.  This year, the prize was a necklace valued at two thousand pounds.  As you are all aware, cancer charities are high on our help-list, particularly children's hospices, so we hope you will continue to give them every possible support, this year and always.

Unlike most other charities, the PSCF committee never deals with the public; we depend on you in that regard and we limit our activities to helping the individuals and organisations chosen by you.  Despite that well-established procedure, there are quite a number of times each year, when we receive direct calls from the public, seeking financial help.  On such occasions, we always appraise the callers of the functions of the PSCF and, if the matter seems suitable for our/your involvement, we advise them that they are at liberty to contact a prison establishment in their locality.  We always make it clear, that the decision on giving them charitable help is purely a matter for the Prison Service Staff.  As an example, one such call came from London-based group, the  children's heart foundation, who were attempting to involve members of the public in a number of fund-raising projects.  They expressed their gratitude for the information we gave them, but we do not know if they took any further action.

Towards the end of the year, we received a telephone call from a caseworker employed by a group called Northumberland Home Equipment Agency.  She said she was seeking help for a seriously disabled 'client' who had retired some twenty years ago, after working for seven years as a prison officer.  He had suffered a stroke and required a stair-lift at his home and adaptations to his shower unit.  After explaining the functions of the PSCF, we advised that her client could contact his old friends in the service and seek help.  We heard no more for a few weeks, so we contacted the lady, to see if any progress had been made.  She apologised for failing to keep us informed, but was delighted to say that her client's ex-colleagues had rallied to his help and things were under control.  As a matter of interest, we asked if the local authority had offered any help to the disabled gentleman.  We were told that they had declared themselves unable to do so, because the man's wife was in employement and therefore not eligible for assistance.  According to the caseworker, the local authority ruled that the family would have to pay the first £9,500 of the quoted costs; and the quotation totalled £6,500!

Among the many interesting appeals dealt with this year, was one from a member of staff at Brinsford, who collected funds for the charity, Visually Impaired Children.  The member had received help for her own eyesight problems and, understandably, felt the need to support young people with similar difficulties.  As you would expect, we made quite a generous donation.  On a number of occasions, newly joined staff have raised money for charity during their initial training courses.  We were happy to support them on every occasion.

One interesting case, at Frankland, involved helping a group of disabled people to purchase equipment they needed, so that they could participate in amateur theatrical performances.  To assist this cause a member of staff went for a swim in the North Sea, on Boxing Day, and collected £350 from his rather stunned colleagues.  To our certain knowledge, this is not the first time that the word "charity" has allowed our members to carry out acts of lunacy and avoid being incarcerated.  One appeal again from Frankland caused the committee to feel in touch with Northern History; we supported members who raised funds by having a race to Blaydon.

We encountered quite a new problem at a south west Prison, when the management, with instruction from Head Office, told the staff they were not allowed to publicise a charity event in the name of the Prison Service.  The purpose of the event, was to raise funds for the charity "Help for Heroes", so your committee regarded the ban as totally negative.  To display our support for the Staff, Bob and John White travelled to the event and gave their full backing to the local fundraisers.  It proved to be a successful day and we are pleased to report that considerable funds were raised.

At our next committee meeting, we discussed the rather odd ruling of the prison's management, as we were resolved to prevent such an unfair decision being made again and having an adverse effect on our members' fundraising efforts.  We made the following decision: "in the event of prison staff being denied permission to publicise a fund-raising charity function, which has the full support of the PSCF committee, they should seek the help of that committee, who will make the necessary arrangements to publicise the event in the name of the Prison Service Charity Fund."  We have no wish to find ourselves at loggerheads with any part of prison management, but we felt quite unable to allow such a antipathetic ruling go unchallenged.

On one occasion, we were asked to support staff who had raised funds to help a local child who needed treatment in the Chinese Replubic, to combat very serious eyesight problems.  In collaboration with the other local chatity groups, the priosn staff had themselves raised a large sum of money, so we were pleased to make an additional contribution.  To our surprise, a member of the family contacted Bob a few days later; he thanked us for our cheque, but told us that the required sum had already been raised, allowing the child to travel for the required treatment.  We were asked to give them our decision regarding the disposal of the funds, which were not required at this time.  With the agreement of all concerned, the one thousand pounds had been returned to our coffers and will be made available again to the fundraisers if, as it seems likely, the child requires any follow-up treatment.  We are pleased to tell you that, to date, the treatment appears to have improved the child's eyesight.

Our newest committee member, John White, has been working hard to improve the membership figures.  We had been suffering a loss of income, due to some of our membership application forms lacking the members' National Insurance Numbers.  The rather fearsome rules governing confidentiality meant that the only way we could obtain the information, was by direct communication with the person concerned  - and that often proved difficult.  To John's credit, the problem has been largely overcome and our finances have benefited.  We would be grateful, if you can help to obviate this problem in future, by ensuring that the membership forms include the person's N.I. number.  Another matter which has been occupying John's time, is in recruitment of PSCF establishment representatives.  The duties of these "reps" is not over-demanding, but it can be very helpful for us, when we know precisely whom we can contact at a prison, should the need arise.  Thanks to John's efforts, the number of reps is on the increase.  If you feel that you could assist us in any way, please have a word with John.

Our vice-chairman Peter continues in his resolute way, to deal with a matter he calls "the monthly exercise with the donation figures".  Each month Pay Branch provides Peter with a very lengthy nominal list, to show the names of every Prison Service employee who has contributed to PSCF membership during that Calendar month.  Peter then rearranges the list, to show the names under the appropriate establishments and in alphabetical order.  What began as merely one long list of names becomes a valuable document, for use by Catherine and Bob in their committee work.  Peter stores this information, and can supply all reps at their respective establishments with the information required, regarding PSCF membership.  If any rep requires this information, they can contact Peter through the usual committee channels, this can be a very useful item when recruiting new members.

There have been occasions this year, when apllicants for financial help have asked us to issue cheques to them, in the names of the individual fundraisers.  To make payments in that way, would in fact be in breach of our constitution; PSCF cheques have to be issued, either to a central account or an intermediary link, quite often the establishment Governor, if he or she will offer this alternative.  We offer this as a small point to bear in mind, as it otherwise, slows down the arrival of our donation.

We continue to receive requests to support staff that are raising funds while attending overseas events.  Of course, such appeals qualify for our help when the funds are being raised for medical treatment or equipment in the United Kingdom, but please, remember that the PSCF donation in all such cases is limited to a maximum sum of £500.  Most of you will remember that the limit was set, following discussion, at a previous AGM.

The agenda for our monthly meeting in September had only three applications listed, so we decided to deal with them via e-mail messages between the committee members.  This proved to be a sensible decision, as it saved some of us making quite long journeys to and from Liverpool and the cost that involves.  At the next monthly meeting we discussed the pros and cons of that procedure.  We agreed that, while the e-mail contact lacked the "cut and thrust" of our usual meetings, it is a system we can employ in the future, particularly when there are extreme weather conditions.  Following the paucity of applications that month, you will not be surprised to learn that Bob appeared at the October meeting bearing no less than twenty requests for assistance.  That evening we agreed to support staff applications totalling in excess of ten thousand pounds.

In some cases, staff seek our help when they are supporting National Charities which have very wide criteria, so far as their work is concerned.  To ensure that we keep within the rules of our constitution, we have to ask that the monies we grant to such causes will be devoted to specific medical work, within the organisation.  In such cases, please bear that in mind; again, it will speed up our response.

Since the initial production of our DVD last year, we have issued some two dozen copies to interested members.  Bob has brought along some copies today and they are available to you free of charge.  Be sure to ask him if you want one.  You may recall that, the total cost of producing our DVD was in the region of £250.  That was of course, excellent value and we remain indebted to those of you who were involved.  We understand that the Governors of some prisons have allowed the DVD to be shown at staff gatherings - do we need to say more?

We now move from the DVD's, to announce the birth of our fully functioning web site.  All will be revealed by logging onto:-

http://prisonservicecharityfund.co.uk

The topics which you will find are listed as:-

HOME; COMMITTEE; CITERIA; FUND RAISING; DONATIONS LIST;

AGM ATTENDANCE INVITES; GRANT APPLICATION FORM.

I should perhaps warn the more timid amongst you, that one member of the committee has appended his photograph to our web site and the remainder are planning to do so.  The credit for setting up the web site must go to one of our long retired colleagues from HMP Liverpool, Tony Lord, with information regarding the PSCF supplied and edited by Bob.  Tony has worked hard on this project, and has met any costs incurred, as his donation to the fund.  We would like formally to thank Tony for his efforts, and one way we can do this, is for Reps and members to supply the committee with any items of interest to fundraisers within the service.  A web site can be a valuable tool to inform all members of the progress of the fund, and an insight to the availability of assistance to many worthwhile causes.

Now to our final topic.  It has been kept as last; because it is a serious matter which we think merits general discussion.  It refers to information received recently, concerning the Government's machinations with the so-called Third Sector; we expect you will recall that in truth the Third Sector was, in truth, the Charity Sector, the other two being the Public and Private Sectors.  For some reason, those of our leaders who wished to harness the resources of the charity sector seemed loathe to call a spade a spade; surely "the charity sector" would have been a clearer and more honest label.

From the outset, it was patently obvious that the Government authorities saw the organisations which comprise the charity sector, as easy profit, if the people managing that sector could be persuaded to take-on government work.  Without the overheads of privately-run organisations, they could be expected to carry out work for the authorities at much reduced rates.  Those trying to involve the charities in government work, tell us that the third sector will deliver the services better than the state or the private sector ever can. Do they mean "better" - or should that word really be "cheaper"?

Your committee has always expressed our hostility to the charity sector organisations being employed by the government; no charitable group has ever been set up with that purpose in mind.  In our small way, the Prison Service Charity Fund is content to give financial assistance to those National charities which deal with the medical treatment and medical equipment needs of members' of the public.  Nevertheless,  we feel that it would be improper of us, to allocate our members' contributions to any organisation, whether charitable or not, which is employed by the government.  In fact, we believed that, by continuing to support such organisations, we would also be acting in contravention of our constitution.  We regarded the government as being involved in very questionable behaviour, which merited our attention.

The latest news on the subject appears to have justified our suspicions that someone in autority is determined to tap into the funds of charitable organisations.  The Department of Health has now indicated that new rules are planned, which will result in charity donations made to the NHS hospitals being counted as part of that hospital's  annual budget.  Such action would result in putting any donations we may give to such places, firmly in the hands of the government.

As a first step, we wrote to the Minister of Health on February 25th. and asked him to comment on our concerns.  We copied the letter to the Tory shadow Minister, for the same purpose.

At the time this report was compiled, we were awaiting a response from both addressees.  We will update you on any replies received in the interim.