Tuesday 10 March 2009

Yeeeeeeeeeeees!!!!!!!!

Great news. Umbrellabuilders, the government backed umbrella investment fund that I chair, has just scooped another great pool of cash from the Department of Health. God knows what it's for and what we will do with £100m, we can barely spend what we already have, but who cares? This is great credit to UBE's chief executive Donovan Morris and his team who put in a tremendous amount of work concocting some story about a pressing need for social investment in enterprises doing work highlighting the health benefits of umbrellas.You know the type of thing - umbrella equals dry head equals less chance of a cold equals healthier workforce equals greater productivity.

This will no doubt prompt the usual whinges from those such as Heston Mayday at Canopy Bank about skewing the playing field of social investment in the umbrella sector area and ignoring the claims of proven institutions but frankly I don't care. It shows that our model of promising to get the money out quickly without bureaucracy, (for which read properly checking the background of a claimant) fits perfectly with the government's short-term-quick-win (or loss) objectives.

They don't care if ultimately this approach lacks sustainability and means money is not going where needed most. They want to be able to turn round and pull the plug in three years rather than wait for ten so that the money can be redistributed to something they really care about. And any help we can give in this regard, we certainly will.

2 comments:

  1. Have you seen today's Third Sector Daily re: the Third Sector Leadership Centre??

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  2. I have. It sounds similar to a saga in the umbrella sector, which I have blogged about above (Leadership tussles).

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