it's charity, Jim, but not as we know it

There's been a lot of talk about capping tax relief on charitable donations on the radio and in the papers in the past few days.  When the Systems Administrator and I were discussing it over lunch the SA proved unexpectedly firm on the subject, saying that there were a lot of dodgy overseas charities.  The SA's time in the City providing administrative services to hedge fund managers gave something of an inside view into their finances, and the verdict was not favourable.  I asked what sort of dodgy charities, and the answer was charities that didn't seem to do much you or I would regard as charitable, like digging wells to provide clean drinking water, or providing schools that taught children to read and write, or hospitals that reduced maternal death and injury during childbirth, or vaccinating people against lethal diseases.  Dodgy charities, whose main role seemed to be to buy political influence in overseas countries.  I said surely that wasn't so common, and the SA said that it was more common than I thought.

A woman speaking in some capacity for the charitable sector complained on Radio 4 that all charitable donors were being unfairly labelled as only giving as a tax dodge, and that it was a slur that would deter charitable giving.  No they're not.  I haven't heard any Coalition spokesman say that all, or most, charitable giving is merely a ruse to escape tax.  I did hear David Cameron say that there were some dubious overseas charities, which is what the SA said.

Lots and lots of people have complained that arts funding will be adversely affected.  It may be, but if I were speaking for the arts, if anyone could hold a mandate to do so for the whole of the arts, I would think carefully about what I said.  The SA was rather pithy about the arts as well, on the basis that while rich people supporting the arts bring benefits to the rest of us, they are buying into a social circle and benefit directly themselves.  That's true.  If I were very rich I would love to be a patron of the arts.  It would be great fun to endow the new Cardunculus exhibition space at the British Museum, and be invited to very exclusive receptions where I could mix with Grayson Perry and Nigella Lawson AKA Mrs Charles Saatchi.  It would certainly be more fun than paying boring old income tax, to fund hospitals, and schools, and the social security budget, and the national debt, getting no thanks or recognition at all except for a computer generated printout from the Inland Revenue.  But since I am not rich, and not likely to be, I'll have to go on making do with the odd invitation to previews for Friends of the Royal Academy, and mixing with other Friends and their guests, or fellow holders of National Art Passes.

I'm sure that the rich people who fund the UK's museums, galleries and concert halls genuinely care about the arts and do it for bona fide philanthropic reasons.  I'm glad that they do, and that I get to enjoy the fruits of their generosity.  But I don't see it as entirely outrageous for there to be a limit on the amount of their donations that can enjoy tax relief, and for philanthropic urges above a certain level to be met out of post tax income, in the same way that the rest of us have to fund our pleasures from what is left of our earnings after we've paid our bit towards public expenditure.

I think arts organisations should keep a little quiet for another reason.  The Coalition already has so many fights on their hands that I wouldn't see them picking another one at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of these years the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commissioners began to look more carefully at what is and isn't a charity.  Already public schools have come under the spotlight, and are required to provide bursaries, share their facilities with other schools in their area, and generally demonstrate that they provide a benefit to the wider community and not just the children of the better-off parents who can afford to pay the fees.  There are a lot of organisations in the UK registered as charities, run by good-hearted, hard-working people, giving pleasure to their members and providing employment,but whose charitable credentials using a strict sense of that word are questionable.  My music society, for example, is a registered charity.  I think it is a very fine society, bringing good quality chamber music to people outside London, and providing income and concert experience to young musicians at the start of their careers, as well as established artists.  I don't really do much, just wash teacups and make party food, but the bookings secretary and chairman work incredibly hard.  But if I were, say, a fan of stadium rock with no interest in classical music at all, I might ask why performances of chamber music by dead classical composers to a predominantly middle class audience got more favourable tax treatment than my kind of music.  The music society has started funding workshops in schools, but worthy as that is it doesn't account for a very big part of the budget.

Charities dealing with cultural interests, like art, or music, or gardening, will have to walk a tightrope if they are to become more charitable in the strict sense that giving to cancer research is charitable.  In making themselves appeal to a wider section of society they risk alienating the people who are currently funding them.  The RHS in recent years has made much of its charitable goals, promoting community vegetable gardening, school gardens and such like.  That's very admirable, but may not interest their current members.  I recently heard a very keen Suffolk gardener, somebody who has been on plant hunting expeditions in Nepal, say that he was going to give up his RHS membership, since he never went to the Chelsea Flower Show, and the magazine was rubbish nowadays.  Harsh words, but he felt that the society in trying to broaden its appeal was no longer providing enough of interest to really serious gardeners.  It's going to be a juggling act.