DMB
29 Dec 2009, 12:18 PM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6969955.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6969940.ece
So charitable donations to hospitals will be lumped in with the NHS budget.
Hospitals are facing a rule change that could mean that the £2 billion in assets held by NHS charities effectively become part of the general NHS budget, it has emerged...
...The change could make it easier to mask cuts to budgets. This means that charitable money would become effectively a substitute for public money, which could put people off giving
And let's do anything to conceal the awfulness of the PFI deals, all part of Brown's loading the country with debt while he was still Chancellor:
He points out that the new accounting rules also mean that from April the debt left from private finance initiative deals — the value of the hospital building or assets or debt at the end of the PFI contract — will be made transparent on NHS balance sheets.
He reports that KPMG, the accountant, was asked by some NHS trusts to look at “innovative structures” to allow them to avoid accounting for PFI liabilities on accounting sheets — including disposal of the asset in charitable trusts. “It would be bad news, not least because the taxpayer has paid for these hospitals and they should be owned by the NHS and be accountable to the public. The whole point of PFI was that the asset was supposed to come back to the taxpayer at the end of the contract,” he wrote.
“Under this arrangement billions of pounds of public funds could cease to be legally part of the state. The irony is that the purpose of the accounting rules is to clarify responsibility, not to confuse things.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6969940.ece
So charitable donations to hospitals will be lumped in with the NHS budget.
Hospitals are facing a rule change that could mean that the £2 billion in assets held by NHS charities effectively become part of the general NHS budget, it has emerged...
...The change could make it easier to mask cuts to budgets. This means that charitable money would become effectively a substitute for public money, which could put people off giving
And let's do anything to conceal the awfulness of the PFI deals, all part of Brown's loading the country with debt while he was still Chancellor:
He points out that the new accounting rules also mean that from April the debt left from private finance initiative deals — the value of the hospital building or assets or debt at the end of the PFI contract — will be made transparent on NHS balance sheets.
He reports that KPMG, the accountant, was asked by some NHS trusts to look at “innovative structures” to allow them to avoid accounting for PFI liabilities on accounting sheets — including disposal of the asset in charitable trusts. “It would be bad news, not least because the taxpayer has paid for these hospitals and they should be owned by the NHS and be accountable to the public. The whole point of PFI was that the asset was supposed to come back to the taxpayer at the end of the contract,” he wrote.
“Under this arrangement billions of pounds of public funds could cease to be legally part of the state. The irony is that the purpose of the accounting rules is to clarify responsibility, not to confuse things.”