Slough council looks to create charitable trust for mayor’s fundraising

Slough council should set up a new mayor’s charitable trust to ‘ensure proper accounting practices and oversight’ after money raised for good causes was left undonated in the past, a report has said.

Funds raised for charities selected by the mayor of Slough each year are held in a council-owned bank account with the intention of being donated.

But, according to a report prepared for a council meeting on Wednesday (April 15), money has been building up in the account with questions over when it was raised and for which causes.

The report said there had been ‘a sum of money accruing over several years with a lack of clarity as to which municipal year it relates to and which charitable purposes it was intended to support’.

It added: “To manage these funds and ensure they are not accidentally subsumed absorbed into the council’s funds, the monitoring officer has decided to set up a registered charity for these funds and all funds raised by future mayors.”

At a trustee committee meeting in Observatory House, councillors will be asked to agree that the historic pot of money be distributed through a new Mayor of Slough Borough Council Charitable Trust.

Each year, a maximum of £1,000 will be taken out to share the funds across several years.

The report said: “Setting up a charity will ensure proper accounting practices and oversight and allow donors to claim gift aid, in addition to setting out clear objects to ensure that the mayor’s chosen charity meets specific conditions.”

Slough mayor councillor Siobhan Dauti, who was elected at a full council meeting in May last year, has chosen to support two charities, Sakoon Through Cancer and The Vishaal Foundation.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Cllr Dauti said the two charities are ‘two topics that are very close to my heart’.

She said: “The Vishaal Foundation was started by an ex-councillor of Slough, Madhuri Bedi.

“She suffered child loss in the most traumatic way, and she started up the group to support other families going through child loss.

“Sakoon Through Cancer was started by a lady called Samina Hussain; she had her own cancer journey – breast cancer.

“She realised then, South Asian communities in Slough, for them, cancer was still a taboo subject, so there was very little support.

“She started the group to kind of open up that conversation, to highlight that some of health inequalities were due to the fact that people weren’t talking.”

Cllr Dauti said the group is not just intended for Slough’s South Asian community, and that she is aiming to raise £2,000 for the two causes through her crowd funding page.

A Ladies Summer Ball will also take place on May 1 at the Elite Banqueting Suite in Slough. The funds raised from the ball will be donated to the charities.

Cllr Dauti said that when she was voted in as mayor, ‘the most amazing support’ has come from the women of Slough.

“One of the first events I attended was the International Women’s Ball in the same place last year,” she said.

“I just said it would be lovely to recreate that, to thank the women that have supported me through it but as well to celebrate all of the women in Slough.”