Almost three years after launching her grandly-titled education charity the Diane Abbott Foundation (DAF), Heat Street has discovered the shadow health secretary has finally filed its first set of accounts.
For those not acquainted with the DAF, Abbott gave an interview in June to a publication called All Africa in which she explained its activities thus:
“I have set up Diane Abbott Foundation (sic) and I want to use that charity to build some specific legacies around education and do international works, support families on how to help black boys, in particular, to achieve their dreams.”
Thanks to the accounts, it is possible to see that Abbott’s noble aims did not get very far in the DAF’s first year of trading. Indeed, forget about “international works” – the charity’s cash hardly strayed beyond SW1.
During year one, DAF received £35,000 of income – £25,000 from financial services giant the Prudential and £10,000 from City law firm Linklaters.
The accounts – which Abbott stresses were not independently audited – show that almost all of this money – £29,072 – was spent hosting the London Schools and the Black Child (LSBC) awards ceremony held in parliament on 8 October 2014.
For this party Abbott hired three of parliament’s grandest venues – the Members’ Dining Room; the Thames Pavillion; and the Terrace Pavillion. About 150 people attended, including Commons Speaker John Bercow and DJ Trevor Nelson.
The LSBC is an “education advice” organisation which Abbott set up in 1999. It is not a charity and is not registered with Companies House.
So, social warrior Abbott tapped big business for £35,000 for her DAF charity and then diverted most of the proceeds towards hosting an awards ceremony in parliament for her other outfit, the LSBC.
Abbott, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies, has kindly provided a breakdown of this expenditure in the accounts. Some will ask whether it was absolutely necessary for Abbott to spend her charity’s scarce resources quite so lavishly:
As highlighted above, £12,539 of DAF money went on “room hire and catering” for the LSBC event.
At the same time, “production, sound and lighting” costs for the LSBC bash swallowed up another £8,360 – almost one quarter of the DAF charity’s total annual income.
The marketing budget for the free, by-invitation-only LSBC ceremony was £3,112 – that’s 10% of the DAF charity’s annual income.
Not forgetting the £700 appearance fee an unnamed “artist” trousered.
Meanwhile the young prize-winners whom Abbott is so keen to inspire so that they can fulfil their dreams shared less than £2,000 between them from the generous donations given to the DAF by Linklaters and the Prudential.
Why did Abbott wait so long to publish the DAF accounts – and why did her charity chose the quietist time of year to do so?
Heat Street put various questions to Abbott’s office yesterday afternoon and will report back in due course.
