The news this week that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert by the RSPCA coincides with a report from the National Audit Office on the effectiveness of the Charity Commission.
The advert was featured in a previous blog To cull or not to cull (part 2) and claimed that the choice for the government in attempting to tackle the bovine TB problem was to either “Vaccinate or Exterminate” the badger. To anyone familiar with the English language, exterminate generally means to ‘wipe out’ and that certainly wasn’t what was going to happen in either of the trial culling areas. The advert was undoubtedly misleading and now the ASA agrees. It was in 2001 that another RSPCA advert, this time on foxhunting, was also banned by the ASA for being misleading.
It doesn’t reflect well on the RSPCA, especially after the negative publicity the organisation has received throughout 2013, but it is an indication of how certain charities appear to be acting as if they can ignore the rules under which they operate. That may all be about to change.
The National Audit Office report, The regulatory effectiveness of the Charity Commission, was published this month and is damning in its conclusions. The reports states:
“The Commission is not regulating charities effectively. It does important and necessary work and its independent status is highly valued, but it does not do enough to identify and tackle abuse of charitable status. It uses its information poorly to assess risk and often relies solely on trustees’ assurances. Where it does identify concerns in charities, it makes little use of its powers and fails to take tough action in some of the most serious cases. This undermines the Commission’s ability to meet its statutory objective to increase public trust and confidence in charities. We conclude that the Commission is not delivering value for money.”
A good example of the problem is the non-adherence to Charity Commission guidelines, one of which states that, “A charity can campaign using emotive or controversial material, where this is lawful and justifiable in the context of a campaign. Such material must be accurate and have a legitimate evidence base.” In relation to the bovine TB issue, the vaccination of badgers has been the rallying call for many groups, including the RSPCA, as if once that has been achieved the disease will have been beaten. But that is not the case – the real victory will be when incidents of bovine TB in cattle have dropped sufficiently and the reservoir of the disease in wildlife brought under control. There is no vaccine as yet that has been proven to be able to do this in the field. Scientists have not been able to find a 100% effective treatment for TB in humans, so it would surprising if one had been found for badgers.
So not only is the RSPCA advert wrong in using the wording ‘exterminate’, it is also in breach of Charity Commission guidelines in implying that the argument for vaccination has a “legitimate evidence base”.
This is all quite apart from the question of the charity pursuing such an aggressive prosecution policy.
In addition, organisations and groups that have been used to operating unhindered by such restrictions find it hard to re-adjust when they achieve charitable status. The League Against Cruel Sports thinks that trespass, setting up covert cameras, being party political and using self-appointed hunt ‘monitors’ in support of a flawed law is all charitable. Care for the Wild, another charity, is quite happy to make unsubstantiated claims about the brown hare population, but can’t provide any evidence in support of their statement. What is even more surprising about this is that the Charity Commission says that there is nothing that can be done about such a claim, despite it being against charity guidelines. So charities appear to be able to say pretty much anything they wish.
The government has now announced a consultation on extending the Charity Commission’s powers to tackle abuse in charities.
One suspects that there will be plenty of material to assess.
During the recent Badger Act case it was revealed that a key witness and ex LACS monitor had a very serious criminal past involving a conviction violence against members of the public and the police in connection with the Hunting Issue.
This was not just some minor incident but an event widely celebrated amongst the many anti hunt activists that favour violence.
What frankly beggars belief is that LACS apparently stated that they knew nothing of their monitors criminal conviction.
We know as well that LACS knowingly employed someone who was convicted for grave desecration and also that one of their trustees has a very serious criminal past.
These people are employed to stalk and monitor members of the public, they are encouraged and do trespass on private land in order to do so. We know that part of their job is to secretly film children either for their own archive or for publication on the net.
It is an absolute abdication of their basic duty of care as a charity for The League Against Cruel Sports to employ serious criminals in this capacity.
This is a very serious issue indeed. It is not acceptable that charitable funds are being used to allow the public including very young children to be targeted by criminals.
The ASA should have fined the RSPCA for publishing an inaccurate, alarmist and misleading advert, which they would have known what they were doing. They would then think twice about doing it again. Another example of spineless regulators.
Evening Piers,
Interestingly, the RSPCA is run by Gavin Grant, who should know better.
He was previously a top PR man. Now as CEO of the RSPCA his experience
in that field ought to give him some idea of what is acceptable when it comes to expensive advertising campaigns. The governing council of the RSPCA need to take a serious look at how much control he has or has not got.
Evening Giles,
Been doing a little bit of checking up and will stand corrected but I think the following is correct. LACS have numerically employed more people with a criminal record than the total they have successfully convicted under the Hunting Act (2004).
Animal Aid also don’t have a very good legal record when it comes to operating vehicles, as has already been reported on this site.
Probably wasting your time but do you know if either Joe Duckworth or John Cooper have apologised to the family of the young girl that LACS monitors filmed without their permission.
Evening Jon,
It’s funny you should mention Animal Aid because said Hunt Monitor used to be married to a very prominent member of Animal Aid who also did time – for a serious fraud. It really is a small and rather criminal world. And it’s really most odd that LACS claim not to have known about his very widely known and very violent and dubious past because they employed his very close chum as their press officer.
However let’s be brutally honest a spot of fraud, violence, grave desecration &c pales into insignificance with what you find at trustee level. I hope you’ve accounted for the act of what can only be described as terrorism that haunts the past of one of their board members.
Heaven knows what as yet uncovered dark deeds have performed and indeed if they are to be believed nor do they 😦
Nope no apology from Joe or John and none likely. I won’t say it takes a real man to say sorry as it might appear sexist in this day and age. Let’s just say it takes a fully mature and responsible grown up to do so.
Evening James
Very informative blog as usual. Noted your reference to Care for the Wild.
Recently in the Huffington Post, Care for the Wild International CEO Philip Mansbridge wrote what should have been a thought provoking article. In the piece amongst other things he called for a closed season for the brown hare in this country. Certainly a subject that does deserve serious debate and scientific investigation. He explained that without such a closed season “nursing hares” (leverets to everyone else) die from starvation in their “burrows”!!! Failure by the CEO of such an organisation to know the most simply facts and terminology about the subject he is talking or writing about beggars belief. Is there any hope for the hare with people like this demanding lead the conservation of our countryside.
Thank you, Jon.
As I’m sure you know, the call for a close season for the brown hare is not a straightforward issue. It is certainly not helped by people who don’t seem to understand the animal or make claims they cannot justify when asked to provide sound evidence.
James – Just the one ASA ruling against them on the hunting issue, truth is the RSPCA have just gone platinum with their record of ASA adjudication. In my house politians are placed lower than a snakes belly for trustworthness, the RSPCA are considered lower than that. I cannot stress this enough, the RSCPA, LACS, Bristol University and IFAW played the dirt tricks game as they could never predict the information sharing capabilities of the internet. What they hoped for was by now a decade later the Hunting ban would have been thought of as being bought in to prevent cruelty by most people, instead enough evidence is around to remind people it was bought in off the back of spite, bigotry, predjudice, ignorance and class hatred.
Worth a gander, and also worth noting the ASA adjudication for lamb losses and widespread fox control in light of the current situation:-
These damaging findings come at a time when the anti-hunting lobby is struggling after finding no convincing reply to two pro-hunting demonstrations that brought 120,000 and 300,000 people to London. The RSPCA advertisements subject to investigation were published in November 1997, and used headlines: “Whatever you think of foxes, you have to admire their guts.” and “How much longer can foxes tolerate this kind of pain.”
The photograph in one advertisement claimed to show a hunted fox that had been killed by disembowelment. In fact, as the RSPCA later admitted, the picture was of a fox that had been shot dead, then partly eaten by hounds some time later. The ASA upheld a complaint that the picture was not genuine, and did not represent what happened to a fox killed by a hound. The ASA also asked the RSPCA “to ensure that they could demonstrate that the pictures used in future advertisements were representative.”
Nigel Burke, Countryside Alliance Head of policy said: “The ASA has exposed claims by hunt prohibitionists. The photograph claimed to show a hunted fox killed by being torn apart. The true story is that the fox was shot dead and then fed to hounds. That is how the anti hunting lobby works. They use pictures of animals that are killed quickly by shooting or by hounds, and pretend that the post-mortem damage from hounds is what caused death. It is contemptible to exploit people’ s emotions in this way. If everything that the anti-hunting campaigners say about hunting is true, and their monitors are out every day with cameras, why do they have to use a sham photograph?”
The RSPCA advertisements claimed that foxes are not an agricultural pest problem, citing the Ministry of Agriculture’s position as “the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food estimates the number of lambs taken by foxes to be not significant.” The Countryside Alliance submitted to the ASA an actual text of the Ministry’s position, which reads “The Ministry does not consider foxes to be a significant factor in lamb mortality nationally, but it should be stressed that this is against a background of widespread fox control by farmers.” The ASA asked the RSPCA “to ensure that they did not select quotations in a way that could mislead in future advertisements.”
CA head of policy Nigel Burke said: “The RSPCA is an important campaigning organisation, and misrepresenting Government policy like this will damage its credibility at the highest level. Worthwhile work such as the quarantine campaign will be harmed unless the RSPCA distances itself from the cowboy tactics of the anti-hunting lobby, and gets back its proper agenda.”
In the text of these advertisements, the RSPCA claimed that among hunted foxes “death usually occurs by disembowelment.” The Countryside Alliance submitted photographic evidence that the hunting technique of foxhounds is to kill quickly by biting the neck or upper spine of the fox. The ASA dismissed the RSPCA’s view, and asked the RSPCA not to repeat its claim.
In an advertisement concerning stag hunting, the ASA upheld a complaint that the advertisement gave the impression that stags are caught and killed by hounds. In fact, stags are brought to bay, (a defensive posture,) and shot with a licensed firearm or humane killer, a fact which the advertisement concealed.
The ASA did not uphold a complaint that the advertisement was wrong to say that “scientific analysis reveals a litany of suffering” in hunted stags because some experts did not support that view. The Countryside Alliance accepts the ASA’s decision not to uphold the complaint, although all parties recognise that the Bateson report referred to was not supported by all other experts at the time of publication. The present situation is that new science has uncovered fundamental errors in the Bateson science, and members of Bateson’s own scientific panel have withdrawn somewhat from his original claims, and called for research into ways for hunting to continue.
The ASA adjudication held that it was legitimate for the RSPCA to claim that pregnant deer are hunted. The Countryside Alliance accepts that they are, but points out that deer pregnancy lasts nearly a year, and is not a visible nor a physiological burden until the end. 90% of foetal weight is gained in the last six weeks of pregnancy, by which time seasonal hunting has ceased. Deer pregnancy is not, therefore a welfare issue, as the anti-hunting lobby might hope that a layman would assume.
Nigel Burke said: “Truth is breaking out all over on this issue. The expensive lobbying efforts and sharp practices of the anti hunting lobby are being exposed. The scientific report used by the National Trust to ban deer hunting has been contradicted by superior scientific studies. The prohibitionists missed their wave earlier this year, and the ASA investigation has accelerated the slow puncture in their political credibility.”
Good evening all
Just looked at the LACS web site and noticed on their news section something rather dodgy. There is a picture of a gentleman called William Staines, a terrier man for the Ashford Valley. The article voices the great disappointment of LACS because Mr Staines has just been found NOT guilty of interfering with a badger sett earlier this year. The League’s evidence or lack of it failed to get a conviction so they have now chosen publish a picture of him on their web site. This is clearly against any form natural justice and also shows LACS work on the basis of guilty until proven innocent and then continue to suggest guilt by innuendo. Perhaps Mr Staines could engage an eminent human rights barrister like Prof John Cooper QC to take action against LACS to get the picture removed. LACS is forgetting one very important fact in this matter, it is a charity and has responsibilities to the charity commissioners, it’s members and the public. Clearly they are failing all three.
If the behaviour of the RSPCA and the multiple ASA adjudications against them in their attempts to mislead folk over the hunting issue were not repugnant enough, ladies and gentlemen please welcome the Mammal society from Bristol University headed by our old friend Prof Stephen Harris.
Maintaining a website (http://www.thefoxwebsite.org/index.html) with the phrase “ one site all the answers to foxes “available in a many languages this website would appeal to teachers and children up and down the country for perhaps what they would consider impartial unbiased information on foxes, fox control and hunting. Sadly the author of the website forgot to consult their leader Professor Stephen Harris it would appear. Apparently the major recorded cause of fox mortality in Britain is collision with vehicles, followed by culling. Which is in direct contrast to Prof Stephen Harris`s research contract for the Burns inquiry which states:-
“It is estimated that in Britain 285,000 foxes are killed annually by people (Pye-Smith 1997). Dividing this figure according to the different culling methods the numbers killed are estimated as follows: 100,000 killed on the roads, 80,000 shot, 50,000 dug out with terriers, 30,000 snared, 15,000 killed by foxhunts and 10,000 killed by lurchers”
So the actually only recorded and generally accepted figures show culling accounting for 185,000 and RTAs 100,000.
Amazingly the website then asks the question, “ If road collisions and culling do not, what limits fox numbers?”
The answer we are given is social factors, disease and food availability, again if the author had consulted with their leader Prof Stephen Harris he could have referred them to his research contract for the Burns inquiry where he suggests just 40 % of all mortality is due to natural factors meaning the rest has to be down to culling and motor collisions.
I am not suggesting the website is deliberately misleading school children up and down the country, but how would a teacher know Prof Harris is vehemently anti-hunting,? How would they know Professor Stephen Harris counters the mammal society’s own website when the website claiming to have all answers to all your questions to foxes does not even have a link to the Burns inquiry website?
The Mammal society website has one big fundamental flaw. A flaw so bad it renders the whole website worthless, embarrassingly Professors backed by a University and the mammal society failed to grasp they banned hunting with dogs and not just traditional mounted hunting. Now I am not suggesting they are blatantly trying to mislead folk however as I have wrote twice to the website advising them of the flaw and requesting change and nothing has been done, you make up your own mind. However I am first to admit being straight forward with the truth does them no favours – hunting with dogs according to the head of the mammal society (Prof Stephen Harris) accounted for at least 75,000 foxes or 20% of those deliberately culled, the same percentage as shooting which incidentally Prof Stephen Harris stated at the portcullis inquiry was a highly effective form of control.
Perhaps James when you visit schools, award a lollipop to the first 10 year old who realises this fundamental flaw.
I see Professor Stephen Harris’s research on fox numbers gets a mention on the website, apparently showing a ban on hunting over the foot and mouth period had little effect on fox numbers. This is in fact the wrong conclusion because in the research paper Harris argues all other forms of culling would have been severely curtailed as well. So the conclusion should have been all forms of culling had no effect on fox numbers. However a few weeks after the research findings were released Harris stated at the portcullis inquiry, shooting is an effective and efficient form of control, proving beyond doubt he does not support his own research findings.
Perhaps James another lollipop to the first kid who realizes academics draw conclusions solely for the benefit of the funders of their research, in this case IFAW.
Should ASA type rulings be given against websites where it can be proven they are being far from economical with the truth and have the backing of universities and academics and are likely to be used by teacher’s and children for educational purpose’s? That’s a yes from ME!
Academics from Bristol University and folk from the mammal society, feel free to respond, James Barrington is not the sort of person who will leave important parts out of your response out because it does not support the pro hunt argument.
That brings me to my next gripe on the website maintained by the mammal society and headed by Prof Stephen Harris.. Apparently a survey mentioned on the website shows only a third of farmers in Wiltshire consider the fox a pest. This would lead anyone, children in particular to assume the fox is not the pest its made out to be. The information from the survey not documented on the website also showed the majority of the farmers who responded to the survey controlled foxes and 63% thought foxes should be controlled everywhere, against 3.1% who thought foxes should not be controlled at all. If given the full information its likely to be reasoned, the fox is not considered a pest by famers in the Wiltshire area as it is controlled extensively. Whatever the reasoning at least folk especially children would have been given the full information. Its up to children to make their own mind up, and not given just the parts which support a particular stance, let’s just make sure they are given the full information to hand, they are our future. I am appalled I should be saying that for the benefit of academics.
Thank you, Nigel.
I confirm that any reasonable response will be posted here.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that some people who are strongly anti hunting have made some rather strange scaremongering comments on the fact that I give talks to schools and colleges. It appears that they feel there is only one argument – theirs – and that is the only one allowed to be expressed.
Hi everyone,
Just back from my holiday and catching up on Jims blog. Wow, what a fantastic contribution Nigel has made in reminding us about the dregs (slops, scum and dross) of the British establishment.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
The anti-hunt argument by and large has been given to us by Prof Stephen Harris of the Mammal society and Bristol University. For it to work the main aim of culling foxes given by farmers has to be to reduce fox abundance, unfortunately for Prof Harris his flawed reasoning can be found documented by his own hand. In his research contract to the Burns inquiry he takes five studies translates the answers (ie to numerous) from two into reduce abundance, works out the mean from just these two surveys and decides overall reducing fox abundance is the main aim of farmers. Brilliant how convenient for his argument, perhaps he should have been an accountant? Ignoring that fact in four out of the five surveys predation on livestock was given as the top answer and in the unprompted survey by Heydon Reynolds in 2000, not one farmer cited reducing abundance as a reason. Interestingly Prof David Macdonald, who has less to gain from IFAW Funding, stated reducing predation on livestock after assessing the five surveys.
With the now flawed reasoning attained the argument stumbles on comparing the various methods and how much they contribute to the total number of foxes kills, and what is almost infantile logic compares the total number of foxes killed by traditional mounted hunting against the total number killed deliberately and arrives at a figure of 5%, totally ignoring the fact the ban was for hunting with dogs. Totally ignoring the fact if I were to break down the forms of shooting as Harris has done in his research contract to the Burns inquiry (Rifles by day, rifles by night, shotguns by day, shotguns by night) I very much doubt the figure would be above the 5%.
Perhaps Mr Harris this is why surveys have shown farmers use a mixture of methods to cull foxes maybe? Perhaps Mr Harris the only yard stick we have of assessing farmers main aim of fox control (reducing predation on livestock) is the knowledge it is widespread and losses to livestock are insignificant as continually documented by your own fair hand on the website maintained by the mammal society. Just think, you prove fox control works, how ironic.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to Prof Harris and the Mammal society
Nigel and his old friends from the Aldenham Harriers.