Letters | 22 February 2018

How to save charities

Sir: The sexual abuse scandal is merely one aspect of the morally compromised status of large charities such as Oxfam (‘The dark side of charity’, 17 February). Oxfam receives a large part of its income from the government, which necessarily makes it a delivery agency for the state. It spends a proportion of its income on political campaigns, often critical of the same government from which it gets money and on whose behalf it acts. The self-serving hypocrisy of biting the hand that feeds it seems not to bother its senior management.

Oxfam and others also rely on many small donations, often from people of modest means. Others work — for free — in their shops. The money thus raised is used, in part, to pay six-figure salaries to the charities’ senior managers. The chief executive of Oxfam earns as much as many government ministers and substantially more than most people could ever dream of.