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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Venture Capitalists and foster care
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Chief of sinners
Shipmate
# 8794
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Posted
The small private agency I foster for has just been taken over by a large national agency NFA. Here is some information about them They are funded by venture capitialists who one assumes are keen to profit from their investment.
I find it morally repugent that people profit in this way from neglected and abused children. That this is just another business.
Earlier this week I attended some training and we were given the company magazine. It contained an interview with the new commerial director who spoke of, "The necessity of maintaining an increasingly commercial approach."
Here is a comment from the director of Home for Good a Christian charity involved in fostering and adoption.
[ 17. April 2015, 15:04: Message edited by: Chief of sinners ]
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If Jesus was half the revolutionary you claim, how come he is now represented by one of the most conservative, status-quo institutions on the planet?
Posts: 155 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
As soon as the primary purpose of an organisation becomes profit, the service provided has become secondary. In fact, it often slips further down the priority scale behind all of the people responsible for management of assets and increase of profit.
The cause may suffer the fate of becoming at the service of the organisation, rather than the other way around.
Goodwill is one of the factors relied upon so that volunteers will continue to give their time for free, and individuals will continue to leave legacies, etc. The 'big society' can mean the exploitative society.......
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
quote:
posted by chief of sinners
I find it morally repugnant that people profit in this way from neglected and abused children.
If people profit by neglecting or abusing children, that is morally repugnant. If people profit by helping neglected and abused children, it may or may not be the most effective way or providing that help but I can't see what is morally objectionable about it.
People profit from providing all sorts of things that we need, for example from making sure that there is enough food for us to eat, to choose a very basic need which we all have.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
When profit is a motive, other considerations tend to be subservient to that motive. It so prevelant a path as to be a near certainty.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
I have no personal experience with the foster system.
I have read only one child's story about for-profit care. That story says corporate HQ pressures branches to approve inappropriate families because more families means placing more kids means more profit. I have no idea how biased or fair that story is.
Nothing new about people becoming foster parents for the money.
Oregon Base Rate Payment:
$575 per month for children ages 0 - 5 years
$655 per month for children ages 6 - 12 years
$741 per month for children ages 13 - 20 years (plus any special needs pay.) Oregon popped up first in my search. On average, foster families will receive around $675 per child per month in Texas
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
quote:
posted by chief of sinners
I find it morally repugnant that people profit in this way from neglected and abused children.
If people profit by neglecting or abusing children, that is morally repugnant. If people profit by helping neglected and abused children, it may or may not be the most effective way or providing that help but I can't see what is morally objectionable about it.
People profit from providing all sorts of things that we need, for example from making sure that there is enough food for us to eat, to choose a very basic need which we all have.
In theory I agree with you. In fact, some non-profits are just as greedy and blind to greater social good as for-profits (e.g. most US hospitals are technically "non-profits" which sounds good for PR purposes, but doesn't stop them from making $$ hand over foot with excessive price-gouging tactics aimed at the uninsured, all to feather the nests of grossly overpaid CEOs).
But we've also seen what out-sourcing the prison industry in the US has done for us, where the profit motive has led to all sorts of kickbacks and horrific consequences and a rapid surge in incarceration.
I would love love love to be proven wrong, because this is a cause I care about. But my first and only thought upon reading the OP was and is, quite literally, "Lord, have mercy."
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Of course the private sector does everything better. I am waiting for primary schools to go. "Good morning class, today's math class is brought to you by Dyspepsi, please watch this brief message and then take out out your Cola math books".
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Of course the private sector does everything better. I am waiting for primary schools to go. "Good morning class, today's math class is brought to you by Dyspepsi, please watch this brief message and then take out out your Cola math books".
It's been happening for a while. Not cocacola textbooks but commercial ads in schools. Look up Channel One.
Here's an article about ads in schools.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I had no idea. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) That's terrible. Should be illegal. Do they also have videos in the ceiling showing ads before the anaesthetize patients for surgery? "Your colonoscopy is brought to today by An-US Bank. We're so far up your ass, you can taste how interested we are in charging you interest."
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
Even 20 years ago when I was at school funds were so short that when we needed additional exercise books for English they had several pages of adverts (I believe the school then got them for free).
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
At the root of this is what do we think the primary purpose of an activity is, and to what extent will various secondary ones get in the way of that. If they do, they should, if possible, be thinned out.
I assume we'd agree that the primary purpose of a fostering organisation is to provide suitable homes for homeless children. The children must come first.
That would be a suitable object for a charity.
The primary purpose of a venture capitalist company is to get a return on investment. If, for example, it would get a better return on its children by hiring them out to a coal mine to be sent down the pit, their duty to themselves and their shareholders mean it should do that.
It's so fundamentally obvious that profit is an objective that is in direct conflict with fostering that this should answer the question.
Likewise for the fosterers. If they are doing it for the money rather than because they want to help children and the money enables them to be able to afford to do this, they shouldn't be allowed to do it.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
One might as well say that no private company can provide legal advice because they would be bound to prioritise profit over giving the correct advice, or that no private company can build a plane because they are bound to prioritise profit over safety.
Of course there can be conflicts between profit and other imperatives, and regulation is necessary, but generally speaking providing a good service and making a profit are not alternatives; rather it is by providing a good service that a company gets customers and revenue.
Neither the NFA or the venture capital company which invested in it owns any foster children. The responsibility for placing foster children lies with the local government authorities. If the NFA proposed to send children down mines rather than helping place them with foster parents, it would not be used by any local authorities and would therefore make no profit at all.
This company has been operating for 20 years. Surely it should be possible to determine whether it has done a good job or not rather than just relying on general sentiment towards private companies.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I think that essential services should all be not-for-profit with caps on top wages.
That way people would, hopefully, go into the work for the right motives.
Leave the profit makers to non essentials which are a matter of choice whether we use/buy them or not.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by moonlitdoor:
... Of course there can be conflicts between profit and other imperatives, and regulation is necessary, but generally speaking providing a good service and making a profit are not alternatives; rather it is by providing a good service that a company gets customers and revenue. ...
There is yet another significant difference that applies to foster care, which makes it different from, say, running a restaurant.
If I don't like the food or the service, I can complain, question the bill, not go there again and badmouth the proprietor to my friends.
Children in foster care can't do that, or if they do, no one will listen. They have foster care arranged for them. Even if you say the local authority is involved, the Director of Children's Services doesn't receive the care he or she commissions.
Sorry, the idea of seeing either the arranging or providing of foster care for money, primarily driven as a commercial venture, sticks in my craw. Likewise, for that matter, probation services and a lot of other similar things.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think that essential services should all be not-for-profit with caps on top wages.
That way people would, hopefully, go into the work for the right motives.
How many of the employees of those essential services do you suppose are there for "the right motives" as opposed to for the paycheque?
And if it's ok for the regular employees to be there just because they're being paid, why is it so bad for the bosses to be there for the same reason?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
At the root of this is what do we think the primary purpose of an activity is, and to what extent will various secondary ones get in the way of that. If they do, they should, if possible, be thinned out.
I assume we'd agree that the primary purpose of a fostering organisation is to provide suitable homes for homeless children. The children must come first.
That would be a suitable object for a charity.
I say it's a suitable object for government. That's what government is supposed to do-- to be a safety net when the worst happens. Being separated from their parents-- whether thru death, abuse or neglect-- is very much the worst for a child. That's when any community should and must step in and care for the least of these. If the community fails to do so, then yes, charitable organizations and religious institutions should. But it is the responsibility of the entire community.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think that essential services should all be not-for-profit with caps on top wages.
That way people would, hopefully, go into the work for the right motives.
How many of the employees of those essential services do you suppose are there for "the right motives" as opposed to for the paycheque?
And if it's ok for the regular employees to be there just because they're being paid, why is it so bad for the bosses to be there for the same reason?
The regular employees do not have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders that would legally bind them to make decisions, should they arise, that pit the interests of shareholders against the interest of the foster children, in the interest of the shareholders. The people who run for-profit businesses do.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
"In the U.S. 397,122 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system...Around the world, there are an estimated...17,900,000 orphans who have lost both parents and are living in orphanages or on the streets and lack the care and attention required for healthy development."
source
Where will you find that many willing and able to foster parent?
More statistics
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Chief of sinners
Shipmate
# 8794
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Posted
Just to quote from Belle Ringer quote:
Nothing new about people becoming foster parents for the money.
Oregon Base Rate Payment:
$575 per month for children ages 0 - 5 years
$655 per month for children ages 6 - 12 years
$741 per month for children ages 13 - 20 years (plus any special needs pay.) Oregon popped up first in my search. On average, foster families will receive around $675 per child per month in Texas
I don't object to being paid for being a foster carer it allows me to provide for the children I care for. Fostering is a full time role for one person and their partner needs an understanding employer, there are meetings to attend, there are diaries to be completed, in addition to normal parenting tasks, most local authorities or foster agencies insist that one partner is full time. If we were to live on just my income, we would struggle to feed and clothe the children. As it is we can provide for them both the basics and extras, holidays to Disneyland, (we try to take every child who stays with us there once) We want the children who have been deprived of much the middle classes take for granted to experience a good childhood in a safe, loving home where their needs are met and some extras too. We don't foster for the money but the money allows us to foster.
I don't object to social workers being paid for their work either. Both social workers and foster carers choose those roles over better paid careers.
It is possible that I am be hypocritical here but I object to fostering being used as an investment vehicle to make money for the already rich. If the investors take money out of the system then they are taking money intended to help children by paying for social workers, mentors, extra education and foster carers.
[ 19. April 2015, 19:27: Message edited by: Chief of sinners ]
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If Jesus was half the revolutionary you claim, how come he is now represented by one of the most conservative, status-quo institutions on the planet?
Posts: 155 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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tomsk
Shipmate
# 15370
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Posted
Marketisation of everything seems to be the way of things.
Mrs tomsk and I recently started fostering. One of the eye-opening things is that family intervention must cost a lot of money. Where money is spent there is money to be made.
In the same way that other areas of social provision have been turned into money making ventures, it's happening here. C/F: privatised utilities, (subsidised) privatisation of public transport housing provision (from investing in an asset: council houses to subsidising private landlords via housing benefit), care for the elderly has also been turned into a market and is a direct comparable.
Presumably, this makes the economy bigger. I think it's harmful.
Posts: 372 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2009
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
Put bluntly (and according to results filed at companies house) NFA made a profit of £1.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2014.
Do we really think that this is OK?
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Put bluntly (and according to results filed at companies house) NFA made a profit of £1.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2014.
Do we really think that this is OK?
As long as the service they provide is of a satisfactory quality, the amount of money they make for providing it is irrelevant.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
Surely the money they receive comes from the UK taxpayer and is for the benefit of the kids in their care not for the benefit of shareholders?
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Put bluntly (and according to results filed at companies house) NFA made a profit of £1.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2014.
Do we really think that this is OK?
As long as the service they provide is of a satisfactory quality, the amount of money they make for providing it is irrelevant.
Extra monies should go to helping the children, you know, the ones the system is put in place for?
And, the more profit, the more flexible the term "satisfactory" becomes.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Ofsted, in assessing schools and teachers, was using "satisfactory" to mean "could do better".
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I understand that Ofted is not staff by teachers but by people from industrial backgrounds (so they are "independent"), and does not give supportive advice to the teachers it is assessing (so that it can remain "neutral").
Frankly, I'm not surprised that the attrition rate for new teachers is so high. The system is set up to gather data for government and to punish rather than to nurture a high quality teaching profession.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
Historically, this country demands a lot more than merely "satisfactory" from it's fostering system.
+ the amount of money that a company makes Is relevant. Does this country really want the foster care of its vulnerable children to be a money making activity?
.
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I understand that Ofted is not staff by teachers but by people from industrial backgrounds (so they are "independent"), and does not give supportive advice to the teachers it is assessing (so that it can remain "neutral").
Frankly, I'm not surprised that the attrition rate for new teachers is so high. The system is set up to gather data for government and to punish rather than to nurture a high quality teaching profession.
I don't think that is true - Ofsted inspectors I have known have been in the profession, though each team might have someone not as well. Our first team included a non-stipendiary CofE priest, who shouldn't have been involved in anything pastoral - reducing people to tears? (That lot didn't make their CVs available as they should, but after the caretaker elicited the meaning of his lapel cross, Crockford's at the library was useful.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Chief of sinners
Shipmate
# 8794
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Posted
quote:
Put bluntly (and according to results filed at companies house) NFA made a profit of £1.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2014.
I went to a meeting with other foster carers from our agency and I asked how much profit they took out of the system they aggressively refused to answer. I pointed out that anyone could get this information from Companies House and they told me to do that then.
We have decided that the private sector is not for us and are moving to foster for a local authority.
It is one thing for a social worker to et up an agency so that they can produce better outcomes for children and take a salary out of the business for doing so. This is how our agency previously operated. It is quite another for people to become multi-millionaires in the process and to take millions out to feed venture capitalists every year.
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If Jesus was half the revolutionary you claim, how come he is now represented by one of the most conservative, status-quo institutions on the planet?
Posts: 155 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chief of sinners:
quote:
Put bluntly (and according to results filed at companies house) NFA made a profit of £1.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2014.
I went to a meeting with other foster carers from our agency and I asked how much profit they took out of the system they aggressively refused to answer. I pointed out that anyone could get this information from Companies House and they told me to do that then.
We have decided that the private sector is not for us and are moving to foster for a local authority.
It is one thing for a social worker to et up an agency so that they can produce better outcomes for children and take a salary out of the business for doing so. This is how our agency previously operated. It is quite another for people to become multi-millionaires in the process and to take millions out to feed venture capitalists every year.
I'm glad that there are still people like you in the system. May your tribe increase.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Historically, this country demands a lot more than merely "satisfactory" from it's fostering system.
If satisfactory is not satisfactory, the change the standards which earn a satisfactory rating.
You do not achieve better results by giving a legally acceptable rating which is too low.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
In order to provide a service for the UK's looked after children, our foster carers and children require 24hr back up and fabulous staff to aid this process.Historically the UK demands high standards from those who work with children. That is to say, 'satisfactory' would not be deemed to be a fabulous thing to have said about anyone.
Sometimes the local authorities cannot provide the level of back up that some foster carers, looking after some young people, require.
So private companies have been set up to provide that oversight/ training/ back up...etc.
But the very idea of venture capitalists profiting from this ( and other caring professions as well) is to my mind anyway obscene. Just because it works in other parts of the world, doesn't mean that i am keen on seeing it here.
[ 02. May 2015, 17:09: Message edited by: Ethne Alba ]
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
There is something fundamentally wrong in people seeing the word "profit" as being something unsavoury or immoral.
The reason why local authority SS divisions could run foster caring services "not for profit" was because they didn't have to raise the money to operate, either at the sharp end or at the administrative centre.
Take it from me, the percentage of budget for many LA foster/looked after children's sections spent on admin is way above the 6.45% of profit on turnover posted by NFA - 12% of budget being spent on admin was seen as being good up to 2012. As for comparing it to other private sector care operations, it is far below the 20% that is common in the elderly domicilary care sector.
This is not making money out of sad and unhappy children, it is putting the administrative function of such an operation in the hands of people who are good at admin, while employing people at the sharp-end (working directly with the children) who are good at and trained for that: horses for courses.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
There is something fundamentally wrong in people seeing the word "profit" as being something unsavoury or immoral.
The reason why local authority SS divisions could run foster caring services "not for profit" was because they didn't have to raise the money to operate, either at the sharp end or at the administrative centre.
Take it from me, the percentage of budget for many LA foster/looked after children's sections spent on admin is way above the 6.45% of profit on turnover posted by NFA - 12% of budget being spent on admin was seen as being good up to 2012. As for comparing it to other private sector care operations, it is far below the 20% that is common in the elderly domicilary care sector.
This is not making money out of sad and unhappy children, it is putting the administrative function of such an operation in the hands of people who are good at admin, while employing people at the sharp-end (working directly with the children) who are good at and trained for that: horses for courses.
I and several others have already agreed upthread-- in theory. The problem is, the privatization of many other areas of public service in the US-- most notably the prison system--- have led to such horrific bad fruit (the policing problems in both Ferguson and Baltimore can, in part, be traced to this even more directly than the "racist cops" narrative) that I think feeling uneasy about introducing the profit motive into yet another public service-- one dealing with the most vulnerable and underserved-- is cause for concern. As you-- and many other shippies-- have noted, it doesn't have to turn out badly. But based on past performance, we have every reason to doubt that will be the case-- and the risk is enormous.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
L'organist: quote:
This is not making money out of sad and unhappy children, it is putting the administrative function of such an operation in the hands of people who are good at admin, while employing people at the sharp-end (working directly with the children) who are good at and trained for that: horses for courses.
If they are making a profit on the deal, then they ARE making money out of sad and unhappy children. Why is that so difficult to understand? The fact that they are not directly involved in caring for children is irrelevant; foster care can't function properly without admin and support services.
6.45% is a pretty good profit margin, no wonder the venture capitalists are interested. But if the money is going into their pockets rather than being spent on foster care, the children are not benefiting from whatever admin savings have been made, are they?
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
There is something fundamentally wrong in people seeing the word "profit" as being something unsavoury or immoral.
The reason why local authority SS divisions could run foster caring services "not for profit" was because they didn't have to raise the money to operate, either at the sharp end or at the administrative centre.
Take it from me, the percentage of budget for many LA foster/looked after children's sections spent on admin is way above the 6.45% of profit on turnover posted by NFA - 12% of budget being spent on admin was seen as being good up to 2012. As for comparing it to other private sector care operations, it is far below the 20% that is common in the elderly domicilary care sector.
This is not making money out of sad and unhappy children, it is putting the administrative function of such an operation in the hands of people who are good at admin, while employing people at the sharp-end (working directly with the children) who are good at and trained for that: horses for courses.
Sorry, but that's mathematically nonsense. The profit margin is calculated after the cost of administration has been spent. 6.45% profit does not mean they are twice as cost effective as a local authority that budgets that admin costs 12% of the budget for the service. Whatever that element is costing an independent organisation is already inside the amount that the 6.45% is calculated on.
Indeed - though of course I'm sure this isn't the case - the higher the cost of administration, the greater the amount that a 6.45% profit margin will represent.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
As Enoch points out turnover and profit are not the same thing.
What worries me is that the income a fostering firm has is money that is provided (by the state) for the benefit of the child(ren) in care. The only way that they can consistantly turn a profit is by not spending some of the money on caring for the child and instead giving it to the poor, needy, deprived venture capitalists. Or am I missing something?
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Kids cost money. Food, even if just some more beans in existing pot, clothes even if from thrift shops, shelter even if a second bed in an existing bedroom, add in that fostered kids often need counseling and perhaps tutoring because their lives are disrupted at minimum or have been hell at worse.
Rearing kids is work, taking on someone else's kids may be more work than your own because they didn't start with you and learned some different ways that your ways.
Finding healthy and safe homes for kids is work, whether done by government or private corporation.
Usually the way we compensate work in this culture is money.
Starting from scratch, and being realistic (not idealistic "every adult should embrace a needy kid" ain't gonna happen), what should happen to kids who have no home or no safe home, and what money should be used to help the system work? If there are more kids in need than volunteering parents, how should more parents be recruited, what if any rewards should they be offered?
Part of the problem with the current system may be unavoidable, kids cost money, managing a system costs money, wherever there is money some will use it carefully and well but a few will look to their own gain. Some foster parents will use the monthly allotment or more for the kid, some will see it as primarily their pay for the work of fostering. But maybe we can think of a system that would do a better job of helping the kids without excessive demands on the foster parents?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
I think there is a line that has been crossed here between the territory appropriate for profit-making and the territory more appropriate for philanthropy. For sure, projects like this can be managed badly or well according to the will of whoever is running them. Having a profit agenda is hardly a good way of setting appropriate senior management culture. And venture capital does not usually look for small returns. The problem we have is that the government has no idea how to set up a project in which it manages AND it is publicly accountable AND there is some continuity between elected parliaments without going completely OTT on one or more of these. Usually it's accountability checks that are way out of proportion. A good place to start would be to recognise that public servants on the whole are trustworthy - rather than treating them all as incompetent sociopathic fraudsters. The cost of the first attitude in accounting for and policing a few bad apples is a lot less than the cost of the second.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I think there is a line that has been crossed here between the territory appropriate for profit-making and the territory more appropriate for philanthropy. For sure, projects like this can be managed badly or well according to the will of whoever is running them. Having a profit agenda is hardly a good way of setting appropriate senior management culture.
Exactly.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
The problem we have is that the government has no idea how to set up a project in which it manages AND it is publicly accountable AND there is some continuity between elected parliaments without going completely OTT on one or more of these. Usually it's accountability checks that are way out of proportion. A good place to start would be to recognise that public servants on the whole are trustworthy - rather than treating them all as incompetent sociopathic fraudsters. The cost of the first attitude in accounting for and policing a few bad apples is a lot less than the cost of the second.
This.
The problem, in the US at least, is that you have an entire political party where "small government" is a value that exists on the roughly the same level as "love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength". Their faux-biblical arguments to support this include a narrative of government waste that assumes quite the opposite of what you're suggesting-- that ALL government programs are wasteful, incompetent, and probably evil. Private enterprise, otoh, is always good, efficient, and benign-- the magical market forces make it so. The religious level in which the GOP clings to these notions defies logic and is immune to facts. Drug-testing food stamp recipients is the latest example-- despite the fact that time and time again, these programs yield ridiculously low rates of return, the tax money wasted on this doesn't count-- it's all worth it as long as a single weed-toking welfare recipient somewhere somehow is exposed as the horrible layabout s/he is. Same is going to be true of public servants (except police officers of course)-- there is no sum of $$ to great to spend double checking your work, requiring reams of paperwork to justify every minute of every hour of your day, no matter how much time it takes to comply with these measures or how many added layers of administration are required to maintain this, it's all worth it if a single layabout social worker is revealed in all his/her laziness.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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L'organist
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# 17338
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Posted
Excuse me, I didn't say profit and turnover were the same thing, nor did I say that the profit posted by NFA was the same as they spent on Admin: all I did was point out that it was not unreasonable in the greater scheme of things.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Ethne Alba
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# 5804
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Posted
Making a profit is one thing.
But where the words "making a massive return on their investments" are used....i'm personally a tad less happy.
I mean, what does Venture Capitalist actually mean?
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Excuse me, I didn't say profit and turnover were the same thing, nor did I say that the profit posted by NFA was the same as they spent on Admin: all I did was point out that it was not unreasonable in the greater scheme of things.
Actually, it is very much in the greater scheme of things unreasonable.
In theory, one could run a charity in which efficiency created profit.
In reality that is not enough to interest venture capitalists. They exist to make large profit. Every bit of money brought into a charity system which does not support the the target of that charity and the necessary administrative costs is functionally wrong.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
There are certain things which should be outside the range of entrepreurism, be it for profit or not. I would put many charities in this category.
Those who take such decisions should be politically accountable, and as such working for a public organisation.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Twangist
Shipmate
# 16208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Excuse me, I didn't say profit and turnover were the same thing, nor did I say that the profit posted by NFA was the same as they spent on Admin: all I did was point out that it was not unreasonable in the greater scheme of things.
Why is over a million pounds profit not unreasonable when that money has been sourced from the state FOR the looked after children?
Foster carers should be paid well for what they do. All the ones that I know are complete heroes: they pay a tremendous cost socially, emotionally and physically (not to mention financially) for what they do.
Why should some random investors cream that kind of sum off the top of their blood, sweat and tears?
Spend it on the kids or redistribute it to the people who really earned it I say!
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JJ
SDG
blog
Posts: 604 | From: Devon | Registered: Feb 2011
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Chief of sinners
Shipmate
# 8794
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Posted
Just for the record having paid £1 to Companies House I obtained the 2014 acounts for NFA. On the surface they look good for the company £1.9 million profit but no dividend paid it was all reinvested. However a little way down one can see that exceptional items amounted to £11 milion The exceptional item was an inter company waiver writting off debts owed by related companies.
If these items are truly exceptional then one could expect a much bigger profit in the next year. Or is this a means of hiding the true profit from the headline figure? I don't know I'm not an accountant
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If Jesus was half the revolutionary you claim, how come he is now represented by one of the most conservative, status-quo institutions on the planet?
Posts: 155 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Excuse me, I didn't say profit and turnover were the same thing, nor did I say that the profit posted by NFA was the same as they spent on Admin: all I did was point out that it was not unreasonable in the greater scheme of things.
Really? OK, I suppose you didn't literally say that, but your point was obviously lost on most of us. When you make statements like this
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Take it from me, the percentage of budget for many LA foster/looked after children's sections spent on admin is way above the 6.45% of profit on turnover posted by NFA - 12% of budget being spent on admin was seen as being good up to 2012. .
When you are comparing in the same sentence the 12% or so of administrative costs for LA foster care with the 6.45% profit posted by NFA, it seems reasonable (if technically inaccurate) to assume you are suggesting the two are comparable. Your point I guess was that in the grand scheme of things with a 12-20% administrative cost, that 6.45% profit is small potatoes. But, as others have noted, in the broad scheme of things, that's irrelevant. Administrative costs are what they are. One might say they could be cheaper-- but on the whole I would say what we're seeing in many cases is that they're not high enough-- that there isn't enough supervision and even more so not enough resourcing of foster parents-- things that would increase administrative costs. But in either event, it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not profit should be made.
[ 03. May 2015, 22:57: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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