An open letter to Macmillan Cancer Support (update)

Following PMQs I posted an open letter to Macmillan Cancer Support:

'Dear sirs,

I have long been a supporter or Macmillan Cancer Support as I have been impressed by the work that your organisation does with cancer sufferers, including some friends of mine in their last days of life.

However I am afraid that I will no longer be supporting your charity following the way that your spokesman Mike Hobday seems to have coordinated his appearance on The Daily Politics show with Ed Miliband's attack on the government at Prime Ministers Questions. I am disgusted that a charity would enter into the political arena but not too surprised as I learn that Mr Hobday is a former Labour Party staffer and councillor, as well as standing for Labour in Welwyn Hatfield at the last general election. I further read that 'Hobday just admitted to Sky that he was “pre-warned”'

My contribution to Macmillan Cancer Support was not huge but I did also recommend your charity as 'one of the good ones ' to friends and colleagues; that I will no longer do either. I will transfer my money to a non-political cancer charity; perhaps you could recommend one.

Regards

NotaSheep MaybeaGoat'

Somewhat surprisingly I have received a reply from  Hilary Cross:

'Thank you for your open letter to Macmillan. I am really sorry you feel you can no longer support us. We rely entirely on the generosity of the public to provide our vital services to people affected by cancer - so thank you for your support in the past. However, we do feel we've been misrepresented and I would really like to put the record straight about the accusations being directed at Macmillan. I would encourage you to look at the response from our Chief Executive on the Guardian website (http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2011/jun/16/macmillan-cancer-support-reponds). At the end of the day, our priority is the up to 7,000 cancer patients who will lose over £90 per week at a time when they are most vulnerable. We will continue to represent their needs, without fear or favour.'

It seemed only fair to read The Guardian piece by Macmillan's Chief executive Ciarán Devane and I reprint that here:

'Macmillan Cancer Support's purpose is to improve the lives of people affected by cancer and we do that without fear or favour.

We are completely independent of all political parties but talk regularly to MPs about the issues that matter to cancer patients, their families, friends and carers. We do not align ourselves with any political party and we flatly deny these allegations of political bias.

To suggest we have been involved in a "political stitch-up" simply does not reflect the facts. Let's get to the specifics of how we have been campaigning on welfare reform.

Macmillan has three goals for the welfare reform bill:
1. Ensure people with cancer continue to receive critical financial support for as long as their disability limits their ability to work.
2. Ensure people with cancer can receive financial support to help with the extra costs of being disabled as soon as their support needs arise.
3. End the current unjust system where the type of cancer treatment someone receives affects how they are treated in the welfare system.

We have been raising these three issues with the government and in parliament for many months. The Guardian actually wrote a story in March about how 30 cancer charities had written to Iain Duncan Smith, secretary of state for work and pensions, asking for changes to the bill.

We have been working closely with MPs from different parties – Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat – while the bill went through committee, briefing regularly and supporting various proposed amendments. We have also had regular meetings with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials.

In advance of the bill's report stage on Monday, we put out a briefing to all interested MPs. All the DWP ministers received this briefing last week.

The briefing praised ministers for instructing Prof Harrington to look at which cancer patients undergoing treatment should be put automatically in what is called the employment and support allowance (ESA) support group. It also said we were still concerned that there had not been sufficient movement from the government on our other areas of concern.

We also put out a press release making clear that if this bill comes into law, nearly 7,000 cancer patients could lose up to £94 a week. Our estimates have now been pored over and ministers have more or less admitted we're right.

The story was picked up by various national papers on Monday. Ed Miliband's team also picked up on the story and contacted us for more details. We sent them our press release and briefing. Both were up on our website. To accuse Macmillan of collusion on this basis would be to accuse virtually every campaigning charity – and probably most large organisations – of collusion.

There were three things we knew Ed Miliband was doing on Wednesday at which he could have mentioned Macmillan's campaign – prime minister's questions, a webchat and the report stage of the bill. We did not know when or how he would raise our concerns. We asked his team if it was likely to be PMQs and they said they did not know yet either.

We prepared a generic press response and waited. Naturally, we were very surprised that Miliband decided to use all six questions during PMQs to highlight our concerns over the bill.
The call from the Daily Politics television show to our press office came immediately after the opposition leader sat down. Mike Hobday

We also immediately put out our a prepared press release knowing it would be a big story.
I spoke with Chris Grayling, employment minister, later in the day making clear we were keen to continue to pursue the same constructive discussions with government to address our very real concerns about the welfare reform bill.

After the report stage, we praised the government for announcing they are willing to continue listening about disability living allowance reforms.

Last week, both David Cameron, and the secretary of state for health Andrew Lansley, stood up in the house and highlighted the support we had given the coalition government over NHS reforms and the Cancer Drugs Fund.

Actually, it was Mike Hobday who very publicly praised the government. He did so because the government had got it right.

We all care passionately at Macmillan and the most important thing in all this is that up to 7,000 vulnerable cancer patients – and hundreds of thousands more disabled people – are going to lose up to £94 per week unless the welfare reform bill is amended.

As a cancer charity it is our duty to speak up for them. As the bill enters the Lords we will be talking to Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and cross-benchers telling everyone the same story in the hope that as many peers as possible will support people affected by cancer.
Ciarán Devane is chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support'

There are quite a few points that I think need addressing but here are the key ones:
Ciarán Devane writes that 'Mike Hobday, our head of campaigns, policy and public affairs, was five minutes away from Westminster.' Was this entirely coincidental?

'We are completely independent of all political parties' But employed a former Labour staffer and parliamentary candidate as spokesman? Did you expect complete political independence from him? Do you think you received complete political independence from him?

The question surrounding 'pre-warning' seems not to have been comprehensively addressed. Are you calling Guido Fawkes a liar for writing ' Hobday just admitted to Sky that he was “pre-warned”'? 

Anyway I have taken a look at Macmillan's last set of accounts, which are for the year ending 31st December 2009. The income spread looks good in that the money is raised from proper sources not just from the government's coffers. However in 2009 £1.211 million was received from Government and a further £934,000 from the Scottish 'government', only 2% which makes Macmillan way better than some Fake charities such as Oxfam; although Fake Charities still describes Macmillan as 'fake', albeit somewhat controversially. The breakdown of expenses to 'charitable spending' is not too bad either, so I cannot really quibble with how Macmillan is run either. The highest earners are not ridiculously paid for running such a large organisation although the 'retirement benefits' seem to be an area that needs reexamination; most private sector defined benefit schemes have been closed why should a charity's higher paid employees not have to suffer along with those who contribute to that charity?

I await answers to these questions before I will consider supporting Macmillan Cancer again, in the meantime Marie Curie Cancer Care will get an increased donation.