Government should stop giving charities start-up funding or unrestricted grants because they can be used to “subvert the democratic process and squander taxpayers’ money”, according to a think tank report published today.

The Sock Doctrine: What can be done about state-funded political activism? was written by Christopher Snowdon, director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free market think tank. Snowdon claims that the UK is seeing a growing number of “sock puppet” charities and campaigning groups, which receive government funding in order to argue for policies which politicians favour, but which are unpopular with the wider public.

“Government lobbying government by using taxpayers’ money to fund special interest groups is both immoral and an inefficient use of public money,” Snowdon said in a statement accompanying the report. “By crowding out privately-funded voluntary organisations, this taxpayer-funded bloc of charities, quangos and NGOs subverts the democratic process.

“It is vital that measures are introduced to prevent state-funded political activism and make taxpayers aware of how their money is being spent.”

The report says that governments also provide funding to certain groups so that if they lose power, those groups can act as “shadow state” and a “government in exile”, and lobby against future administrations.

It says charities which campaign against the policies of the current government can be considered “sock puppet” organisations in the same way as charities which campaign for policies the government favours.

A 2012 IEA paper, also written by Snowdon, entitled Sock puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why, suggested the Charity Commission should tell charities that lobbying could not be their primary activity.

"State-funded pressure groups"

The report says examples of "state-funded pressure groups include Christian Aid, Save the Children and Oxfam because they received funding from the Department for International Development but were also part of the IF campaign, which was ‘secretly orchestrated’ by the government to support the policy of donating 0.7 per cent of GDP in foreign aid.

Also included are Acevo and the NCVO, which campaigned against cuts to voluntary sector funding; Stonewall, which lobbied for same-sex marriage; and Alcohol Concern, which lobbied for minimum alcohol pricing.

Other recommendations

 The report also recommends that:

•  The UK should introduce the “Queensland rule”, introduced in the Australian state, which says organisations are not allowed to lobby or campaign if they receive more than half their funding from the state.
• The Charity Commission should require charities to disclose how much they spend on campaigning and how much money they receive from government.
• Any organisation that receives funding from central or local government should be subject to the same Freedom of Information obligations as a government agency.
• Trustees of any charity which receives government funds should sign a guarantee that “the funds granted will not be used, either in full or in part, for political advocacy, lobbying or campaigning”. Trustees should be personally liable for the proper use of these funds.