Freedom of Information Act UK:"Jehovah's Witnesses and Faith Healers" - the most complained about Charities

[retroHelen]

Many of UK's newspapers this week have been publishing articles based on the Freedom Of Information Law in the UK that publishes collected information by many Government Offices when requested. This week it was the Charity Commission. Less scrupulous sensationalist newspapers did not publish the full details and I was confronted with people on the Ministry with the phrase: "You do realise you are the 2nd most complained about Charity in the Country that has not been prosecuted for what you are doing that people don't like. The Daily Mail article was among those who did not publish figures, leaving people to imagine it was vast numbers of complainants. Well, I thought I would put up the actual information from better sources in case any of our other UK members hear of this misleading reporting.

In the last 2 years we have only had 13 complaints to the Charity Commission and it itself says:

"None of the complaints against charities in the top 10 resulted in any formal action against those organisations. The number of complaints would not necessarily mean that a charity had acted wrongly or contrary to its charitable purpose.An internal dispute within a membership body could result in several letters of complaint or dissatisfaction, but might not be be a fair indication of the level of service that is being received by beneficiaries," said Liam Carroll, the commission’s complaints manager. It said it did not usually compile a list of most complained-about charities and had only done so in response to the 'Freedom of Information' request."

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/Governance/article/1165755/jehovahs-witnesses-spiritual-healers-top-complaints-charity-commission/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9783676/RSPCA-is-one-of-Britains-most-complained-about-charities.html

I could guess that among the so few complaints would perhaps be some from those disgruntled over judicial case outcomes or maybe from a few members of the public who are now Do Not Calls, but 13 over 2 years is hardly worth flapping about - in fact I was surprised it was so few, considering how many congregations in city areas are falling over themselves calling on all their territory every 2 or 3 weeks!

[DW]

Ah, it is unfortunate that articles like those get published. Some people just want to get upset and use half-truths as their vehicle. One thing about situations like this....it does bring Jehovah's name to the fore. Honest-hearted people will never be swayed by Satan's smoke screen.

-Dave

[sunshine]

Thanks Helen, seems like a bit of a storm in a teacup ... but we must expect that, the media is becoming more and more sensationalized...