Really?

The period between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day is - for many - a time of unrepentant over-indulgence and sheer unadulterated pleasure. Of course, some of the public services - Police, Hospitals, Fire brigade - continue to work as hard as ever, and manage their family lives - somehow - amid a welter of shifts and child-juggling.  However, some public services - most government departments, Council administration, Social workers and Teachers - have the whole time to themselves, and are rarely called out, as staplers with catastrophic failure don't usually rate the overtime and there's always an out of hours team to deal with the most pressing social work needs.

Which neatly segues into the Christmas NSPCC ads. Each year, around this time, the NSPCC emblazons the small screen with multiple and harrowing scenes of implied nastiness being wreaked on the children of this country, along with dire suggestions that abuse over the Christmas hols doesn't get reported, so it's really important to telephone them to report any hint you might have of anything possibly worrying taking place anywhere.

What the NSPCC won't tell you, however, is that not only do they spend significantly more on advertising than they do on child protection but that they don't actually do anything about the reports themselves.

Yes - that's right;  in case you're having trouble comprehending exactly what's being said, NSPCC don't actually do child protection themselves

So what do they do with the money they collect from the well meaning?

When they get a call, they simply ring the out of hours team at the Social services department for the area and pass it on.  So - you might ask - why don't those reporting the incident go straight to the equine's orifice? After all, ringing Social Services directly eliminates one extra layer of communication, and thus one extra chance of confusion and error.

Effectively, it's down to the remarkable image-trick the NSPCC has been pulling for years.  Through the use of massive amounts of money, they've persuaded a large number of the UK citizenry to believe that they are the only guardians of children in the UK. In fact, the only actual services they offer are counselling services - which are actually fairly good - but not the hands-on, inspector-led child protection services they would have you believe.

So next time the NSPCC approach you and ask for a donation, ask them what they actually do with the money.