See ‘What we’ve done so far’.
Also, of course we have to supply accounts to Companies House and the Charity Commission and copies can be obtained from Companies House.
Substantial Donation
As was reported on Sky by Neil Shepherd, father of Christi and Bobby, the children who died of CO in 2006 in Corfu, there were substantial donations made to several charities including independent registered charity CO-Gas Safety. CO-Gas Safety is extremely grateful for this valuable donation to assist the charity to continue its work of preventing deaths and injuries from unintentional CO poisoning.
However, the amount of the donation although extremely welcome is not life changing for the charity, which will continue to do its work in a similar way. CO-Gas Safety still has no assured, continuous funding to collect, collate and publish data and provide victim support which it has done since 1995. Therefore all the work, apart from a small amount of paid work by our database officer, will still be done by volunteers. The charity’s directors are still considering the best use for these funds but the initial decision is to simply continue to do what the charity has always done.
The Past
We have done a huge amount of work on a shoe-string with volunteers doing most of the work and with a very small amount of paid administrative help to process the data. We had a full time office administrator but the funding for the salary from Department of Health’s Section 64 Grants for this was for one year only and despite an increase in our core grant, we have had to make her redundant. It is also very difficult to find someone suitable of undertaking the work as although we don’t give legal advice and always make it clear that Stephanie is not insured, nor has she a practising certificate at the moment, it is a very responsible job advising victims about medical matters, (e.g. when to seek help urgently) and preserving evidence. Naturally we err on the side of caution but half the skill is in asking the right questions. What we need is someone who can do the administrative work and has a legal qualification and experience as a shop steward or some other similar job.
Who funds CO-Gas Safety?
When we launched at the House of Commons we had no funding whatsoever. CO-Gas Safety was basically supported by John Trotter, husband of Stephanie Trotter and now senior partner of Bates Wells and Braithwaite, solicitors. Bates Wells and Braithwaite, also very kindly set up the charity, wrote the constitution and registered it etc.
Helen Smith (wife of a CO victim) kindly gave us a donation collected at the funeral of her husband. We had some other small donations.
Harry Rogers, (who was our gas expert for many years) has provided us with invaluable free advice and endless help for which we are very grateful. His wife, Lorna, who helps Harry with the business has also helped us greatly.
Then John Ball, MBE, kindly supported us through the June Ball Trust. Shirley Adams (sister of a CO victim) also gave a generous donation.
Finally in 1998, we obtained some funding from the Department of Health. We obtained a further lump sum in 2000 of £10,000 for much needed equipment and further funding (£16,000 per year) until 2003. In June 2000 we received a promise of matching funding from Centrica. This funding enabled us to set up the database and acquire a much needed office although in April 2009 the office is back in the home of Stephanie Trotter. However, now her children have grown up this is a good arrangement both for Stephanie and the charity as she now has room for the charity. We have also received £6,000 from The National Gas Emergency Service Helpline .
COGDEM (Council of Gas Detection and Environmental Monitoring) kindly paid for a PR firm to help organise the conference for over 200 delegates at the House of Commons in 1999. Everything has been undertaken by volunteers, (e.g. press conferences, petitions, lectures etc.) with some part time paid help. Stephanie Trotter has worked full time (sometimes more than full time) as a volunteer for this charity since January 1995.
We only use funds for our objectives and receive funding on a basically unconditional basis, i.e. naturally we agree to formal matters such as submission of accounts etc, and we may agree to spending certain funds on certain projects, for example, data collection or compilation..
Otherwise, although we are very grateful for our funding, we pride ourselves on using the funding in as independent a way as is possible to make sure our objectives of reducing deaths and injuries etc. are fulfilled.
November 2003
CO-Gas Safety is grateful to Centrica for matching the Department of Health (DOH) funding for three years. In 2003, Centrica informed CO-Gas Safety that it did not wish to continue to match the DoH funding as ‘we (Centrica) are already committed to other CO related initiatives’. However, as a result of letters very kindly written by our Conservative MP, Crispin Blunt, CO-Gas Safety received in October a donation of £5,000 from EDF Energy. CO-Gas Safety has also received a donation of £5,000 from Powergen. These donations are extremely welcome and will enable us to continue our valuable work, hopefully at least until the recommendations made by the HSE in 2000 to improve gas safety, are implemented.
Please note that (until Nov 2004) we had no full time paid officers and this only for a short time as our funding didn’t allow this. Our cuttings and data officer is part time and we have some very limited paid administrative help. Otherwise all our work is undertaken by volunteers, mainly Stephanie Trotter and Harry Rogers with some valuable help from Paul Overton, Molly Maher, Don Neal Jonathan Kane and our MPs. From time to time we receive great assistance and support from victims. We find that victims often have excellent ideas about how to improve safety and are very helpful with regard to informing politicians and civil servants about the realities of being a gas or CO victim.
Funds towards the costs of the 10 year anniversary event of CO-Gas Safety in 2005, which not only celebrated the 10 years of the charity but also, raise awareness of the dangers of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
| CoGDEM | 3,400 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| Kane May | 3,400 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| CORGI | 2,000 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| Centrica | 1,000 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| GISG | 1,000 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| ERA (Energy Retail Association) | 1,000 (cheque received and paid into bank) |
| Total £11,800 |
Also, 200 detectors.
Also PR from EI and press packs.
Over the period 31st July 1995 to 17th January 2006, we have existed on a total income of £245, 949.18. That’s just under £22,500 per year.
Sponsors of the 2007/08 Schools Poster Competition to raise awareness of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning – our first poster competition
These included a very generous donation from the Department of Health, Kane international, NAPIT, Scottish & Southern, Logic Certification and Centrica.
Sponsors of the 2008-09 Schools Poster Competition to raise awareness of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning – our second poster competition
These included donations from Plumbing Trade Supplies, Frank Brehany of Holiday Travel Watch, Centrica/British Gas (gave most of the prize money for this year) and Kane International.
As well as funding, we greatly value any contributions in the form of publicity or other help to raise awareness of the competition.
Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
Attended our prize giving in January 2009 for our 2007-08 competition and kindly encouraged entries for the 2008-09 competition see http://www.edballs.com/index.jsp?i=3847
Department for Children Schools & Families
Put out alerts to schools in its newsletters
PTS Plumbing
Put our flyer up in its outlets and handed it out.
Stephen Hadley from PP2 Pumps
Delivered flyers to all the schools in his area.
Gas Safe Register Magazine has put in an article and published a letter about the competition.
Ian Taylor MP
Emailed all the schools in Surrey about the competition
Andrew Turner MP
Promoted the competition by issuing a local press release and writing to schools on the Isle of Wight
Barry Sheerman MP and the Huddersfield Examiner
Submitted an article about the competition to alert all local schools see http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2009/06/22/huddersfield-mp-barry-sheerman-calls-for-government-to-introduce-mandatory-gas-safety-checks-in-all-homes-86081-23938773
All the winners of the 2007-08 competition lobbied their MPs which was an unexpected but extremely helpful contribution to raising awareness of the dangers of CO.
Vokera
Emailed all the Gas Safe Registered gas installers who have agreed to be notified of this sort of thing by email and who work with Vokera, about the competition.
We were refused funding for 2009 onwards by the Department of Health but we succeeded on the schools poster competition (starting 2010). Meanwhile we have survived on the savings we made from the Centrica grant and other donations, many collected by victims or their friends and relations. We are extremely grateful for and touched by such donations, whatever the amount but consider that it is outrageous that people, who have already lost so much do the work and raise the funds when this should be done by industry and government.
We received £25,000 from Kane International in January 2010 and we received £25,000 from the Hawkshead Trust, £500 from Gas Instal West Midlands and £1,185 other donations.
Since 2010
Since 2010 we have received no funding from the Department of Health for our data and have had to manage on donations. We are very grateful to Jonathan Kane of Kane International for keeping the charity going but of course this wouldn’t be possible without all the voluntary work by the directors and many others, such as Roland Johns and John O’Leary. The lack of secure funding has made our work extremely difficult.
We have sought funding from the Gas Safe Charity and the Gas Safety Trust, particularly for our data. Apart from a small grant for a laptop from the Gas Safe Charity, we have been unsuccessful in our applications.
The Department of Health decided it would only fund new initiatives. We did obtain funding for our schools poster competition but we received the last payment for this in April 2013. Thankfully the schools poster competition has beenfunded by all four of the gas emergency service providers and the areas of North England, South England, Scotland and Wales are now all covered. However, we are waiting to hear if they will continue to fund the poster competition for 2014-2015.
We have applied endlessly to the Gas Safety Trust (has at least £4 million) and the Gas Safe Charity (has at least £1.4 million) for funding for our data. The Gas Safe Charity has told us it doesn’t fund research. We have also applied to the Gas Industry Safety Group (chair, Chris Bielby) but their opinion was that the data should be centralised which we agree with. However, there still remains the difficulty of who controls input and output, publication and victim support. The Gas Safety Trust told us that they wanted to collect the data themselves. However, they have no victims on their board and don’t offer any victim support and it is often through offering help that we find out details that shines a light on the things that went wrong and could be improved and save lives in future.
We have been supported in 2014 by money generously given by the Guild of Master Sweeps (£1,000) and raised by a family who lost a girl aged 25 to CO (further £1,000). We have also been generously supported by Kane International. However, the charity desperately needs secure funding for the future.
Our accounts which are published at Companies House each year contain full details of donations.
Our Members – updated November 2014
After the end of January each year for a fully updated version please see our latest press pack and the headed paper on our index page. Stephanie Trotter tries to update the whole website every summer.
Patron
- Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Board Members
- President Stephanie Trotter OBE,LLB (Hons) Lib. Dem
- Company Secretary Dr. Don Neal, BSc PhD
- Vice-Chairs
Mike Hancock CBE, MP Independent
Andrew Rosindell MP Con
Mike Thornton MP, Lib. Dem. - Treasurer
Paul Overton
Jonathan Kane, CoGDEM
Parliamentary Friend & Vice-Chair
- Rosie Cooper MP Lab.
Board of Reference
- Glenis Willmott MEP, Lab.
- Catherine Bearder, MEP, Lib. Dem.
- Richard Ashworth MRP, Con.
- Roland Johns, retired British Gas
- CO Investigator providing Technical & Training support
- Stacey Rodgers
- The Dominic Rodgers Trust
- Marcus Weatherby LLB (Hons),
- Partner in Pattinson & Brewer
- Alan and Sally-Anne Littlewood
- The Carbon Monoxide & Gas Safety
Society (CO-Gas Safety) is an independent charity committed to reducing accidents from Carbon Monoxide and other gas dangers worldwide and supporting gas related accident victims.
Company Limited by Guarantee
Registered in England. Registration No. 03084435
Charity Registration No. 1048370
Updated November 2014