The League Against Cruel Sports has been censured by the Charities Commission for “party political activity” in criticising the Conservatives for wanting to repeal the ban on hunting.

The charity questioned if the party that David Cameron is trying to brand as the “Compassionate Conservatives” would not be better characterised as the “Nasty Party”

According to a MORI poll taken in September 2009 around 75% of the public support the 2005 ban. The league has a website on the issue at www.league.org.uk/keepcrueltyhistory

A trust set up by a former campaigning police officer, the Victims of Crime Trust, has been voluntarily dissolved after it failed to account for hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of donations, and failed to submit accounts for more than four years.

The trust was “mismanaged”, according to the Charities Commission by its founder, Norman Brennan and his team.

Brennan, who has enjoyed much misguided media support, was formerly a constable with British Transport Police, the farce paid for and controlled by the transportation companies.

Women are 10% more productive when their work involves something they care about, wheras men showed no increase when working for a cause.

This is a finding by researchers at the University of Southampton who have concluded that this difference is a reason for women being more attracted to jobs in lower-paid sectors, such as healthcare, education and charity, where the cause is more important than the cash.

Another conclusion was that this aspect had led to the gender gap in earnings.

A millionaire businessman is giving most of his accumulated wealth to charity, with a stipulation that half of it is invested in the Catholic Church.

Albert Gubay,82, who founded supermarket chain Kwik Save, gym network Total Fitness and a vast property empire has said that he made a pact with God to hand over half his estate to the Church if he ever became rich, which he has, to the tune of nearly £500 million, a figure he hopes to double.

Those who feel that “charitable bankers” is a contradiction in terms might be cheered to note that some are giving a little of the money they’ve stolen from the poor to charity.

In what is seen by many as an attempt to clean up their grubby image bank bosses at HSBC and Standard Chartered are giving their million pound bonuses to charitable causes.

Meanwhile, and nothing of course to do with the above item, a record number of people contacted the Consumer Credit Counselling Service last year.

The charity reports that they received calls for help from 335,323 people, 25% up on 2008, that another 150,000 contacted them online and that in 30% of cases there was nothing that could be done to help them.

The Cherie Blair Foundation For Women, a charity set up by Cherie Blair, has spent nearly as much on expensive female staff as it has on good causes for women.

According to a report published in the Sunday Telegraph, of the £671,438 raised £258,266 or nearly 40% was spent on staffing and consultancy, including a payment of £113,325 or nearly 20% to its former chief executive, Connie Jackson, for 10 months work.

Jackson told the newspaper “I am expensive and I don’t apologise for it”

A one day conference, Strategic Development through Technology for Charities and Associations takes place at the QEII conference centre, London on Wednesday 11 November 2010.

www.itconference.co.uk