School Charity

The Telegraph says:

Plans to encourage a charitable culture among young people by giving every secondary school £500 to put towards its own charity bank account were described as ridiculous economics last night.

The Adam Smith Institute:

This is supposed to teach them about philanthropy, and encourage a culture of giving.

This modest sum has bought the UK government lots of nice publicity and commendations on its generosity. But then it's easy to be generous when you are doing it on other people's money – in this case, money that has been forcibly extracted from taxpayers. That teaches kids nothing about voluntary giving. If anything, it teaches them – and charities – that it's much easier to get large wodges of cash out of the government than out of the public.