Employment Change

Via Bristol City Council:

Bristol organisations enter the dragons’ den to bid for £2,000

Sixty children will be at the Council House, on Wednesday 1 July, to decide which Bristol project to help promote good personal finance should benefit from £2,000.

Part of a groundbreaking new project for the city involving sixteen primary schools, 'What Money Means' is a programme designed to support them in teaching about managing money.  Seventy 10 and 11 year olds have taken part so far.

And what better way to teach children “What Money Means” that to hold a reality-TV style contest in which they are encouraged to vote on which of a group of begging supplicants should be given £2,000 of someone else’s money. Supplicants include Bordeaux Quay Cookery School, Baggator, St Pauls Learning Community Team, Travelling Light Theatre and the Big Issue.

Bristol is one of a handful of places in the UK selected to take part in a National Programme funded by HSBC and run by the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg). The Bristol project is unique in the way that it is putting young people in charge of learning and business decisions.

pfeg (lower case obligatory) are a funny bunch. It would appear they used to be a legitimate registered charity supported by UK banking and insurance companies. But they’ve taken £17 million (£3.4 million in 2008) from the Financial Services Authority to run the “Learning Money Matters” scheme. This grant constitutes 85% of pfeg’s annual income in 2008, putting them safely in the territory of being considered a Fake Charity.

According to pfeg:

In April 2006 the Financial Services Authority (FSA) - the independent body which regulates the finance industry - committed £17 million over five years to fund Learning Money Matters. In the first year significant contributions also came from Bank of America, AEGON and UBS.

The three named donors contributed £350,000. That’s approximately 2% of the £17m contribution from the FSA, which it is worth repeating is the government body charged with regulating the activities of Financial Services Companies such as…Bank of America, AEGON and UBS. If you’re interested in becoming a member of pfeg, the annual subscription is £10,000. Members include the British Bankers’ Association, The Building Societies’ Association and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The current chair of the pfeg trustees is Ron Sandler, the non-domiciled, government-appointed chair of publicly-owned money pit Northern Crock.

Why was the FSA dabbling in educational matters (using other people’s money), through a charity solely operated by their own charges when they should have been trying to prevent this, this, this, and even this.

Back to today’s event:

Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Clare Campion-Smith, said: “Today it is more important than ever that we teach our children the value of money - both how to spend wisely and how to plan for the future.  Our partnership with HSBC has added valuable expertise and I hope that the project has taught this generation to look after their finances sensibly.”

Head of HSBC in the Community, Pete Bull, said: "What Money Means provides much needed high quality financial capability education in schools. At HSBC we are very keen to see a generation of pupils who really understand money. What really excites me is the imaginative approaches adopted in teaching this material - and we have a fantastic example of that on show today. Bristol pupils are being given a chance to use what they have learnt to make a real financial decision. That is What Money Means at its best."

HSBC’s contribution to pfeg is £3.4 million over five years (£744,793 in 2008) to run the What Money Means (Primary) project.

While you’re being corporately responsible, HSBC, perhaps you could rethink your policy of refusing to hand over CCTV footage relating to criminal investigations to the Police without a court order.

Related Links

• pfeg – 2008 Accounts at the Charity Commission
• Fake Charities.org
• What Money Means – HSBC & pfeg announcement
• Bristol City Council Webcast Archive

2009’s election is almost upon us, and I’ve covered most of the policies that I think would make life better for Bristol on this blog. If you haven’t done so already, then have a look at:

1. 20’s Plenty, I suppose
2. The Perils of Residential Parking Zones
3. Reducing the Size of Local Government
4. Yellow Buses
5. Scrap the Avon & Somerset Constabulary
6. An elected mayor, and elected sheriff

But t’other day, while critiquing a recent election broadcast by the BNP, I started pondering the way that the British Flag – the Union Jack - has been “hijacked” by political parties and extremist groups. I don’t think other countries have this problem. In the Anglosphere the Stars and Stripes, the Canadian Maple Leaf, the Australian flag and the New Zealand flag have no implicit negative connotations. Neither do the Tricolore flags of numerous European nations.

My complaint is not so much about patriotism, the last refuge of scoundrels, but about the way in which a significant piece of British history and tradition has been – other than the Last Night of the Proms - removed from our culture. National flags are the symbols for citizens of a country; not for exclusive use of a particular political party, ideology, government or head of state (who has their own standard anyway).

The Union Jack was first created in 1606 from an amalgamation of the crosses of the patron saints of England and Scotland - St George and St Andrew, with later adjustments in 1801 after the Act of Union to incorporate St Patrick’s Cross of Ireland.

There are numerous arguments about why this symbol should be referred to as the Union Flag, except when displayed on a military vessel in which case it is a Jack, but they are only of relevance if you’re a vexillological nerd.

So what to do about it?

I had a dig around in my souvenirs box, and I found an old lapel pin. As part of my contribution to taking back the Union Jack, if I’m wearing a suit (which admittedly is not that often) then I shall wear this in my lapel. And I’d encourage you to do the same. It’s not a life changing act, but perhaps if ordinary people from every walk of life and every point of view choose to  discretely, and with a minimum of fuss, wear the flag, then perhaps the extremists will find a different symbol. (Or just fade away).

So – if you’re up for it, then join me and Take Back the Union Jack.

Coming up tomorrow:

Libraries – Why they are better than skate parks

P.S. If you live in Redland, and at some point in the next couple of hours, I knock on your door and make you get up off the sofa, despite that fact that you’ve been working hard all week and the last thing that you want to do is stand at the door and listen to someone talk about politics, then I apologise for the disturbance.