Just weeks before Shaun Bailey stands as the Conservative candidate for Hammersmith, big questions have been raised about the charity he has been running since 2006, according to The Times today http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7100347.ece.
The most recently filed accounts for My Generation, where Bailey is chief executive, show that independent examiners qualified My Generation’s accounts for 2008-9 because they failed to meet charity and company accounting laws.
In particular they highlighted the fact that £15,952 of My Generation's expenses were made without any supporting records or receipts. About 8% of the charity’s total spending was therefore unaccounted for.
In addition almost half of My Generation’s spending in 2008-9 was on publicity and administration and was not ‘direct charitable expenditure’. Of the £116,000 charitable expenditure, over half was spent on travel and subsistence.
My Generation was established in early 2006 shortly before Bailey was selected to stand in Hammersmith by the Conservative Party.
The charity’s accounts for 2006-7 and 2007-8 were filed late with the Charity Commission. Now big questions have been put to the Commission about My Generation’s accounts for 2008-9.
3 comments:
His defence in the Times was that he doesn't understand accountancy and complicated things like that - presumably the economy and public finance falls into that category too?
Yes, his comment to The Times is very odd: “We had a little panic, we have the stuff. What you are dealing with is a kid from the estate who had a good idea to do this and never had a wider view of accountants and lawyers. We have raised this money, spent it on the kids. We just didn’t know.”
Let's hope Shaun Bailey doesn't have another 'little panic'. If he has 'the stuff', why didn't he show it to the charity's accountants? And most people in their mid-to-late 30s are not 'a kid'. The Charity Commission inquiry should be interesting.
Let alone 'a kid' wanting to be our MP!
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