Into the breach
With few clues coming back from the Charity Commission’s consultation on its future strategy about where possible savings could be made, it was abundantly clear that its role as regulator and protector of public trust and confidence is non-negotiable.
So, as David Brindle in the Guardian puts it, “something’s got to give”. It appears that the discretionary element of the regulator’s services is the provision of one-to-one advice to charities and the promotion of good practice.
Most particularly it is that ‘what do I do now?’ personal, tailored answer that will be missing from a slimmed-down Charity Commission as it makes some tough decisions about how to implement the real-terms funding cut of 33 per cent by 2014/15. Personalised technology and interactivity are all very well, but the instinct when you have a burning question is to pick up the phone.
Umbrella bodies such as CFDG, ACEVO and NCVO are well aware of their opportunity to work with the regulator in plugging this ‘information gap.’ While all are membership bodies, they are also charities, so they have that awkward challenge of how to sustain their income in terms of perceived member benefits while providing open access public information that remains free of charge and a public benefit.
This is something that will need careful planning as each one discusses its ongoing role.Turning to the government’s strategy for the sector published last October, Building a Stronger Civil Society, the now familiar concepts of decentralisation such as bureaucracy removal and community empowerment are clearly set out. The only snag is that nowhere in the document does it explain where the information support is going to come from.
If the Charity Commission retreats from this on budget grounds, who is going to pull everything together in one, easily accessible single point of access? In fact it would seem that the Office for Civil Society has morphed into Big Society (which gets bigger by the day). Attempts to find the blue web pages that replaced the now archived pink Office of the Third Sector ones end in frustration. All you get are a few ‘useful links’ in the Big Society section (starting with the Prime Minister) and that’s your lot.
The problem with just stepping back and hoping lots of communities will just get on with it is that they do need a basic infrastructure; something shadow charities minister Tessa Jowell wasted no time in pointing out in a recent debate (see page 5 of this issue).
One option is for the Commission to identify in more detail how charities need and use information, and then set up a front end ‘your questions answered’ portal with appropriate user-related ‘zones’, then each approved umbrella body could take responsibility for designated areas. Just a thought.
Author: Clarissa Dann
Clarissa Dann was the editor of Caritas as well as an HR and management online service,he People Bulletin until July 2011.
She is now the editor of the specialist trade finance magazine, Trade and Forfaiting Review which can be viewed at www.tfreview.com but does write on charity finance and investment from time to time.
Clarissa has a background in legal and professional publishing, as well as business journalism and holds an MBA from
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