Annual BBC Telethon Under Pressure To Increase Abuse Charity Donations

Children In Need (CiN) is the annual winter appeal of over 80 years’ standing. After every November appeal the final tally is redistributed to other charities “on the ground” to help children.  The Sunday Express reported today that the charity’s trustees are facing pressure to increase the amount of money going to charities related to child abuse.

It’s about time. There have been too many years when Children In Need have given money to some organisations or causes which could be seen as right-on and spurious, compared to helping abused and neglected children. It also didn’t help that the annual report was removed from the CiN website for a few years before its return in full last year, which allowed you to view exactly which groups received how much money. That action implied that the public didn’t need to know where the money was going, even if some of the abscence might have simply been related to either accounting, or just redesigning the website to cope with the annual surge in traffic on the night in Mid-November.  The National Association of People Abused in Childhood reported that 40 Savile-related victims called them amid the total increase on its average contact rate to 4000 extra calls and has called directly for a specific fund for all related charities to access, on top of existing projects funded.

The Sunday Express has the story here and this year’s Children In Need appeal will be screened on Friday 16th November.