Saracens Ltd - charitable donations

It used to be the case that companies had to declare within their published Accounts how much they had disbursed in charitable donations but that legal requirement ceased 5 years ago. Mr Mustard has though gone back through the Accounts of Saracens Ltd, the company which the rugby team income goes through, and found the following amounts.

Years to June

The trend was downhill

In 2014 the charitable contributions were 0.08% of turnover. That doesn't seem like much.

For money going the other way the Accounts of the Saracens Sports Foundation for 2017 reveal this information.

Charging £24,000 rent p.a. to the charity, now that does look a bit keen. Surely they should be given space at the ground free of charge?

Mr Mustard wonders if councillors knew any of this when they voted in favour of the funding for the West Stand & to answer his own question he doubts they really got into the details, just saw the word 'charity' & assumed that the rugby club were giving bundles of money to the charity arm, when that doesn't appear to be the case.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard's new charity arrangements

Mr Mustard has decided to formalise the way in which charity donations are made for his PCN help.

His raison d'etre

Mr Mustard is here, mostly, to fight against unfair PCN and to persist through the two or three possible challenges (PCN in the post have two possible challenges whereas if the PCN is put on the car there are three chances to argue) and through the Traffic Enforcement Centre if necessary.

If you only want to make the first challenge and then pay at 50% you don't need Mr Mustard as only a small percentage of informal challenges (as the first challenge in response to a PCN put on your vehicle are known) are accepted. Mr Mustard has completed 186 PCN in 2016 of which only 34 were cancelled at the informal stage, or almost 1 in 5, so the majority of informal challenges are clearly rejected. That is a story in itself as Mr Mustard prevails, in the end, 9 times out of 10 so clearly a greater proportion of informal challenges should have been accepted.

Disbursements

Mr Mustard attends the tribunal most weeks. That costs him £8.70 on the tube and usually £2 on a Boris bike. He also pays out £1.74 for every 'signed for' letter which has to be sent (for Barnet challenges can be made on line to barnet@nsl.co.uk) as you can't trust councils not to 'lose' correspondence. He makes most non-Barnet appeals to London Tribunals (formerly PATAS) on line but conversely Barnet ones have to go by post until they update their software. Then there are envelopes, paper & ink cartridges to buy. All in all about £1,000 a year is spent being Mr Mustard. That will be recovered from your voluntary contributions in the future.

£25 per PCN

At the start Mr Mustard will tell you if he has identified any possible grounds of Appeal. Do bear in mind that even if he has a number of tribunal decisions which support Mr Mustard's argument that no adjudicator is bound by any previous decision of any other adjudicator or even of him/herself. That may seem odd but is the way the Regulations have been written. It certainly makes the process more exciting for Mr Mustard. In recent times he won 8 & 7 Appeals then lost 4 & 3 in consecutive weeks! The difference was simply which adjudicator he was allocated plus the fact that the losing weeks had more moving traffic offences which are much harder to win.

If grounds are identified Mr Mustard will then ask you to send £25 to the separate bank account which has been opened for this purpose. If you are unable to afford this voluntary donation do please tell Mr Mustard. If you are likely to lose Mr Mustard will recommend that you pay up. If the discount period has passed then the PCN may as well be fought as there is nothing to lose and the discount may be offered again even when there is no legal necessity as councils are, in Mr Mustard's experience, more motivated by the desire to receive money rather than be taken to adjudication which costs them time and a c. £30 fee.

Bank details

Sort code: 16-00-38

Account number: 11395624

Account name: D R Dishman Charity

Please put your name or PCN number as a reference. Mr Mustard will pay the contributions received, less his disbursements, to the North London Hospice once a month & tweet the amount paid over.

Some people give the hospice more than £25 & some give their time or donations of worldly goods to one of the shops. You can still do this.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Why?

PCN appeals can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride

Last year a number of people asked Mr Mustard why he spent so much of his time helping people with their parking ticket (PCN) appeals. Mr Mustard wasn't giving very complete replies as he hadn't really thought about it. One day, on the tube on his way back from a PATAS hearing, he reflected and here is the list of the main reasons:

1. To combat the council using parking tickets as a revenue raiser instead of council tax.

2. As Mr Mustard has built up certain skills and read the relevant legislation which would be wasted knowledge if he didn't use it more than once.

3. As to many people the sum of £110 is their food bill for the rest of the month and it's all they've got.

4. As he has spare time (for now).

5. To raise money for charity. If Mr Mustard's assistance leads to your PCN being cancelled he asks you to make a donation to the North London Hospice (amount of your choice).

6. To combat the sharp practices of NSL and/or Barnet Council. A car was taken from a pregnant lady for a parking ticket where the council didn't follow procedure, a traffic warden photographed a sign from a  different bay to prove his PCN, a motability car was clamped, a motorist caught a traffic warden out telling stories because he had cctv at home which captured his broken down car being pushed by him, where the council know that lines are too faded to enforce and they carry on issuing PCN.

7. To encourage others to stand up for their rights.

8. As it's fun (yes, really, pedantic as well!)

9. As he hopes that continued exposure will lead the council to change its ways for the better.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Dear Marge - #1

Dear Marge

Hello everyone, it is Friday, the day when bloggers have a laugh and tell jokes and doughnuts (a  Citizen Barnet speciality) and publish poetry and all sorts of stuff that is not necessarily true.

Well today Mr Mustard is evoking the spirit of the late Marjorie Proops (and giving away how old he is) and publishing a letter that might have been sent to her by a One Barnet consultant.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

---

Dear Marge

I hope you can help me as I feel that no-one loves me.

I am a very important consultant who is paid lots and lots of money every day but I just can't face going into work unless my nails are perfectly painted and my hair isn't out of place. I am doing what I am told is a really important job in Barnet but I think the staff talk about me behind my back and use a codename when they talk about me. 

They pretend to be nice to me but I don't think they are. 

They say they want to put the community first but all they want to do is keep their jobs and it's my job to make lots of them redundant because they are a lazy lot and there are 20 of them too many.

My boss keeps saying to take the money and shut up and that this gravy train won't last much longer before we have to move on. He says we are like the emperor with no clothes - I don't understand him as I always have very nice clothes.

What shall I do?

Yours in hope

Miss P

Dear Miss P

Be Human

I can see the problem. You are obviously working on the toxic One Barnet programme and don't worry as everyone has doubts about that.

You have a simple decision to make about yourself. What is most important to you? To be loved or to be rich (well at least not poor and relying on help from Barnet Council). If it is to be rich then carry on but sadly you won't become rich at Barnet Council as your boss is right. The gravy train is about to come off the rails and you will never be happy as you have to make so many other people miserable to do that.

If you want to be loved then give up the fancy clothes and the expensive make-up as it is only a mask. Go to Africa and help to feed starving children and villages that don't have access to clean water to dig a well.

Then you will see what truly matters in life, you will be happy and everyone will love you.

Yours in hope

Marge

Mr Mustard didn't realise quite how fantastic Marge Proops was. She is now at rest in the Hoop Lane Cemetery, Mr Mustard might pop round himself to see her grave quite soon and she is at peace as Barnet Council cannot sell the cemetery off as they don't own it. Mr Mustard read this obituary in the Independent. It is well worth a read.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

GLA not making the wisest decisions either.

Mr Mustard noticed this DPR about renting computers in order to manage the GLA election (just for Barnet & Camden presumably).

DPR 1572 - GLA Election Computer Rental

As always, the DPRs omit the vital information such as the specification of the machines. If these documents were better written, and included all of the salient information, there would be fewer Freedom of Information requests.

The DPR though does say that it is the GLA wants to rent the machines; this is not Barnet Council's choice. Mr Mustard wondered if renting was the most economically advantageous way of doing this. He obtained the specification.

HP Desktop DC7900 SFF PC, 2Ghz Dual Core Processor, 4Gb Ram, 80Gb Hard Disk Drive, DVD Rom Drive, 10/100 Network Card, 19" TFT Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Win XP, SP3

Mr Mustard isn't quite as old as the first ever computer but did buy an IBM PC/XT which came out in 1983. It probably had 128kb ( not Mb ) of memory and a 10mb hard disk. Wow.

I used to be all floppy but I'm hard now.

So having been around for so long Mr Mustard thought that the rental cost of £2,700 for 25 machines with a 10 year old operating system was perhaps a bit steep. They are £108 each + vat.

Mr Mustard buys some kit from Morgan Computers and they have supplied good value kit and been efficient and honest in their dealings. They email Mr Mustard now and then and today they emailed him the following offer.

Ibm Lenovo

OK so it is slightly slower at 1.86ghz and only has 1gb of RAM not 4gb, but the machines are to run XP with and that only needs 128mb of RAM. The hard disk is the same size, there is network capability and the screen is only 17" not 19" although Mr Mustard prefers the proportions of the 17" screen he currently uses to the 20" one he uses on the server which makes pictures of people shorter and fatter (not a good look). 

Look at the price though. £99.96 + vat with a 3 month warranty.

Morgan also have a 4gb version for £141.63 + vat and a 2gb version at £116.63 + vat.

Basically there is very little price difference between renting and buying. What should the GLA do? 

They should buy machines and give them to charities afterwards. The GLA are missing a trick here.

Can you have a word Robert do you think and suggest this. Mr Mustard doesn't even mind if you claim it as your own idea or just fail to mention that it is his; he would just prefer to see charities get the benefit.

There is one very interesting paragraph. Para 8.1 which admits, in effect, that the Barnet Craptops (a technical term) are worse than useless.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Fundraising Event for Brain Tumour UK

One of Mr Mustard's musical neighbours has sent him the invitation below in the hope that he might know someone who wants to come along. So do please go along readers, it is a worthy cause and you will also have a fun evening.

If you can't attend & can afford it, why not send them £15 anyway? It is in a good cause.

Yours charitably

Mr Mustard