Royal charities take furlough cash ahead of surge for services
Kate binged on lockdown sourdough!
PRINCE Charles’ flagship youth charity is one of several created by the Royal Family to have taken taxpayers’ cash to furlough staff.
The Prince’s Trust, which aims to help young people train and find jobs, furloughed 47 per cent of its 1,100 staff during the first lockdown.
That came down to 14 per cent of the workforce in September. Currently, 26 staff are still on furlough.
A spokeswoman for the trust said: “Our workforce is now almost fully back and we know the need for our services is only becoming greater as we move through this crisis.”
Unemployment among people aged 16-24 has risen from 12.1 per cent to 14.2 per cent in the past year and the number of young people in employment has fallen by 284,000.
Loans
Almost two million jobs held by young people, roughly half of them, were furloughed at some point between March and the end of July last year.
Meanwhile, the Royal Collection Trust, a charity that oversees tourist visits to official royal residences, has been forced to seek two commercial loans to stay afloat.
It made 130 out of 650 staff redundant and lost 400 temporary staff to meet a £64million drop in income.
But it and many other smaller royal charities have avoided taking Government furlough money. However, it is a different story for the larger royal concerns.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Carers Trust, which grew out of a charity established by Princess Anne in 1991, have also resorted to using taxpayers’ money to prevent staff redundancies.
Ruth Marvel, chief executive of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, said: “With school closures directly affecting the number of young people starting their DofE this year, the furlough scheme helped us retain staff whose roles were temporarily restricted.
“As the UK emerges from lockdown, we’re looking forward to supporting more young people to start their DofE and enable them to build the skills, confidence and resilience that they now need more than ever to face the unprecedented challenges ahead.”
The impact has been smaller on Carers Trust, which supports carers of all ages.
It has pledged to repay the Government furlough money it received for five of its 65 staff.
A spokesman for the trust said: “Thanks to effective fundraising throughout the pandemic, our financial position is stable.
“We have therefore decided to repay the small amount of furlough payment we received earlier last year.”
THAT’S tent-ertainment!
Nothing was going to blow this school band practice off-course – not even a global pandemic.
Each member plays in a Covid-safe tent, with just enough room for their sax, horn or trombone and a music stand.
The zip-up bubbles have transparent panels so the pupils can still see the conductor, and their 35-minute sessions go ahead as normal….almost.
The idea came from music teachers in the US at Wenatchee High School, Washington State.
The pop-up green tents, set two metres apart, were tested to ensure any virus particles did not escape as players breathed out.
Eric Anderson, the school principal, said: “We wanted to make sure students had the ability to sing and play in groups. It was extremely important to us to make it happen.”
He claimed his students were blown away by the quirky solution to let them play, despite the crisis.
Mr Anderson said the Golden Apple Marching Band finds the acoustics are worse “but realistically the ability of them to play together is more important than if we have a little bit of a tuning issue”.
He confessed that while the “music pods” were comfortable for piccolo pupils, life inside for the sousaphone player was much more intense. “They provide a safe space but aren’t very big,” he said.
ALEX Salmond appeared before the inquiry looking into the botched handling of harassment complaints against him.
After legal wrangling over what evidence can be published, the former first minister gave evidence to MSPs on the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints.
Why was the committee established?
It was set up to look into the Scottish government investigation of allegations against Mr Salmond. Evidence has been given by civil servants, trade unions and SNP boss Peter Murrell, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s husband.
Why did Mr Salmond take legal action?
The former first minister did not feel his treatment by the Scottish government was fair. It was later found that the lead investigator of the complaints had prior contact with some of the female complainers. Judge Lord Pentland said the investigation was “tainted with apparent bias”.
How has the inquiry gone so far?
The Scottish government was accused by the committee of obstruction last year. MSPs said they were “completely frustrated” with the lack of evidence.
Both the committee and the Scottish government were at loggerheads over legal advice provided as part of the judicial review process. MSPs wanted to
know when ministers were advised they would likely lose the challenge raised by Mr Salmond, but they said handing over the advice would breach the ministerial code.
On two occasions, MSPs voted for the evidence to be released, with a deal eventually being struck in December to reveal the advice only to MSPs on the committee.
Didn’t Mr Salmond face trial on sexual misconduct charges?
Yes. He was cleared of 13 charges at the High Court in Edinburgh in March last year after his arrest in January 2019.
What were the issues with Mr Salmond’s evidence?
Mr Salmond and the committee have been wrangling in recent weeks over evidence published by the inquiry.
Earlier this month, the former first minister said he would not appear after the committee decided not to publish his submission to a separate investigation into whether Ms Sturgeon breached the ministerial code over fears it may identify some of the complainers in Mr Salmond’s criminal trial last year.
However, an alteration made to a court order by Judge Lady
Dorrian meant the evidence could potentially be made public.
While the committee voted against publication, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body decided to publish anyway.
The evidence, released on Monday evening, was online for less than 24 hours before the Crown Office raised concerns and asked for redactions to be made.
In his submission, the former first minister accused some in the Scottish government and SNP of a “malicious and concerted attempt to damage my reputation and remove me from public life in Scotland”. Ms Sturgeon said her predecessor did not have “a shred of evidence” to support his claims.
On Tuesday morning, the submission was re-released, with paragraphs relating to the set-up of a meeting between Mr Salmond and his successor redacted.
Is the committee inquiry the only investigation into the matter?
No. Ms Sturgeon is under investigation by James Hamilton QC to establish if she breached the ministerial code.
Ms Sturgeon referred herself after being accused of misleading Parliament over when she knew of the complaints against Mr Salmond.
She previously said she had been told about the allegations by Mr Salmond during a meeting in her home on April 2, 2018.
However, it was later found that Mr Salmond’s ex-chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, had told her four days prior to that.
Will Nicola Sturgeon appear before the committee?
The First Minister is expected to appear before the committee next week and has repeatedly said she looks forward to being able to present her side of the story.
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TRUE to self-promotional form Prince Harry has done an interview on an open-top bus in LA with James Corden ahead of his muchpublicised Oprah interview (deliberate timing, obviously). That said there were a few moments where I saw flashes of the old Harry, or “Haz” as we’ve discovered “Meg” calls him.
But just as I was warming to him, he started moaning about the British Press again. How life in England was made impossible for him and Meg, how he hadn’t really stepped away from royal life – he’d just stepped back (which is tosh). And he insisted that his life would always be about public service – although it’s hard to see how multimillionpound deals with Netflix and Spotify qualify as public service. There was also his cringing defence of Netflix, which has been widely criticised for its made-up stuff in The Crown.
Yet Harry said all that was absolutely fine (presumably because he’d been told to by Netflix). He insisted it was the British Press who were the real demons. “I just had to get my family out of there,” he said, like he’d been living in Beirut, not a taxpayer-funded mansion inWindsor. He made sure he mentioned the Queen so we’d know they’re all still in touch and there was the lovely story about how she’d sent Archie a waffle maker for Christmas. Harry tried very hard to make it sound like nothing terrible has happened. But it has. And no matter how much Hollywood stardust he tries to sprinkle on it – this is still the terribly sad story of a broken family.
BORIS Johnson is being urged to intervene in the Domestic Abuse Bill to avert a two-tier system for victims.
Domestic Abuse Commissioner Nicole Jacobs told the PM it was vital community-based services are in the Bill as they offer crucial lifelines of support across England andWales.
Ms Jacobs warned there were victims and children who are stuck in the family home as they are falling between the cracks and not being able to get the support they need.
Figures show 70 per cent of people who suffer from domestic abuse are getting support through communitybased services, rather than refuges.
She said: “The Domestic Abuse Bill marks a monumental opportunity to improve access to support and justice for victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
“I want to bring to your attention an amendment which I believe is fundamental for the provision of adequate support.
“Lord Polak, along with a number of other peers is leading on tabling an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill which will place a statutory duty on public authorities to community-based services.” Services include helplines, perpetrator programmes, along with specialists offering support for children. It also covers specialist domestic violence advisers, which Mr Johnson spoke of last year.
The Daily Express has campaigned through its End This Injustice crusade for greater protection for domestic abuse victims and has already won a Government pledge to overhaul the family courts to protect them.
It has also campaigned for non-fatal strangulation to become a standalone offence, which the Lord Chancellor has indicated will come into law within a year. The Government indicated that £76million was invested in helping support the vulnerable, including domestic abuse victims, during the pandemic and funding will be increased by £40million in 2021-’22. A spokesman said: “We welcome the commissioner’s work on the provision of community-based support and look forward to her findings.” provide
KATE Winslet has joked that she feels like a “full mattress” after overindulging during lockdown.
The Titanic star’s admission came after an unfortunate auto-correction in an email felt alarmingly accurate.
The 45-year-old told The Graham Norton Show: “I’ve been making sourdough and now my arse is massive!
“The other day I was answering some questions on email and instead of ‘film actress’ it auto-corrected to ‘full mattress’.
“That’s exactly how I feel – and will describe myself from now on!”
Kate, who will next be seen in period drama Ammonite, said she had been alarmed by the surge in popularity of her 2011 thriller Contagion during the early stage of the pandemic last year.
The film, about a mysterious virus which originates in Hong Kong before travellers returning to America take it with them and infect the population, surged up the iTunes charts after people were first ordered to stay at home, and soon appeared in the top 10 on Netflix.
It follows medics, government officials and everyday people who find themselves in the midst of a deadly pandemic, as scientists race to find a cure. Director Steven Soderbergh has since said he is working on “a kind of philosophical sequel”. Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed earlier this month that his drive to administer millions of coronavirus jabs was partly inspired by the film, which culminates in a vaccine being allocated according to a lottery system.
Mr Hancock stressed the movie was “not my primary source of advice”, but that it did illustrate the importance of setting out the order in which people would get a vaccination. Discussing the renewed popularity of the film, Kate told Norton: “It freaked me out! Why would anyone watch that during a pandemic?”