Posts by Tony Auckram

  • Speaker: KidsCan comes back, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Kidscan is in Dunedin tonight collecting 50% of the gold coin donation for Dunedin's Big Night in at our new stadium. My children were recipient's of at least two pairs of shoes Kidscan dish out to low decile schools (as an aside I would dispute the description "quality" shoes in our case as the shoes were very poor quality and fell to pieces within a term. I am surprised I never read any other complaints about the shoes, but I guess its not in the interests of the poor to complain) I was curious to see how Kidscan latest two years of financials compare since their financial controversies of a couple of years ago. Umm! Nice one Kidscan! In the Y/E 31 Dec 2006, 2007 and 2008 one could at least do some simple maths to work out how much they spend on kids compared to the money they gather in. Even if we had to pick through the items scattered in the P&L and add them together. In the Y/E 31 Dec 2009 and the Y/E 31 Dec 2010 Kidscan, coincidently, changed the way they reported their spending. In these last two years their financial reporting has changed somewhat. Gone is the P&L of earlier years with a reasonable detailed breakdown of where money was spent. Now there is almost no information. Check out the Charities Commision website and download the financials for yourself and compare yourself how the information is presented in the last two years compared to 2008 and earlier. If we discount the in-kind spending, which is offset by in-kind donations exactly, all other spending on kids is shown in a single line. If that is to believed now up to now 70% of money raised (2010) is spent on its charitable aims. Big increase from the 25% to 29% calculated my myself and others for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 years. My concern in that case is why Kidscan cannot provide a note to the accounts breaking down their "Costs of programmes for children". It seems to me that the way the accounts were presented from 2009 was a change in accounting policy that should have been noted in the accounts. In fact the auditors should have picked up on it and demanded that the "costs of programmes for children" be unpacked further in the notes to keep the level of financial disclosurer in line with prior year treatments. The audit report loaded in the charities commision website for that 2009 year is unsigned. Was it actually signed off in the end or are we looking at draft accounts here? I would like to see what this "costs of programmes for children" figure is comprised of for the upcoming Y/E 31 Dec 2011 accounts. Its not hard. I would be curious as to what costs they are shoving in this category. Its all very general isn't it? More information please.

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2011 • 1 posts Report Reply