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Women’s centre has plenty of cash
• THREE Labour councillors for St Pancras and Somers Town wrote to you last week about a reduction of £25,000 in funding for the Hopscotch Asian Women’s Centre. (Funding is vital for this women’s centre).
While the headline fairly represented the gist of the Labour councillor’s argument, what it says is not true. As one who attended the Children Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee meeting on January 30 at which the reduction in Hopscotch’s funding was discussed, I would like to point out that far from depending on further money from council tax payers, Hopscotch seems to have accumulated quite substantial reserves at taxpayers’ expense in its bank account already.
Hopscotch’s reserves at the end of 2004/05 were over £320,000.
It seems likely that they have at least a quarter of a million pounds now, and they have not told us of any building project which would be a legitimate reason for building up such substantial reserves.
Four fifths of Hopscotch’s income is provided by Camden Council. We do not disperse the public’s money to be held in bank accounts instead of being spent on services.
The Hopscotch Centre’s annual turnover is around £750,000 so they are keeping in reserves a third to perhaps as much as a half of their turnover.
I do not question the quality of the work Hopscotch undertakes, and I certainly do not sneer at the value of the services it provides.
The point is that the £25,000 cut in Hopscotch’s grant is equivalent to only one tenth of the Centre’s reserves, eight tenths of which were provided by the council in the first place! We are simply reclaiming a fraction of our money which has been left unused. Labour councillors are notoriously free with other people’s money. Liberal Democrats like to be more careful with the housekeeping.
CLLR FARUQUE ANSARI
(Lib Dem)
Town Hall, WC1
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