Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

TODAY. The nuclear lobby’s new “prime wheeze” – Community Interest Companies

The UK, famous for comedy, had a great character, Bertie Wooster, who kept thinking up wonderful (useless and silly) new ideas, that he called “Prime Wheezes”. In true Bertie Wooster tradition, the nuclear lobby does the same.

They usually go for “registered charities” – and there’s any number of these, that the industry creates, really nuclear front groups, that pose as genuinely working for the public good.

So why is the nuclear lobby now going for the non-profit Community Interest Companies (CICs)?

Some of the reasons:

  •  The nuclear industry can get approval and respectability,  “piggy-back” on a lot of genuinely positive and popular businesses in an existing CIC.
  •   The CIC business model can incorporate a wider range of social aims than are allowed for charities. This is because the definition of community interest within the test applied to a CIC is broader than the Public Benefit Test for charities. 
  • easier to set up than is a charity..   
  •  murkiness of funding – relatively easy from private donors, grants or community development finance  
  • can more easily buy and sell commercially.  
  •   It is a lightweight structure, it is unencumbered by bureaucracy. It can be set up in a couple of days
  • it  is  like a standard profit-making company then, but with social objectives supposedly built in.   
  • it avoids the accountability mechanisms that charities have, e.g a CIC can have just one director. It does have a (poorly funded) government regulator, Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies, but  there appears to be no pro-active monitoring of whether CICs are operating for community benefit.
  •  Directors and functioning can change overtime, not encumbered by  rules that ensure its social aims. The directors of a CIC can pay themselves whatever they can argue could reasonably be seen as necessary. 
  • any money in the organisation can very easily be siphoned out to profit-making enterprises. 
  • No legal requirement to have a democratic structure   

In Somerset UK, where there is community anxiety about the development of Hinkley Point C nuclear station, and its effect on the environment – what better prime wheeze for the nuclear lobby, than to join an existing reputable Community Interest Company?

Hinkley Point C, has teamed up with the CIC Passion for Somerset. as a principal partner.

April 13, 2024 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , | Leave a comment