On the right track?
October 2008
The Charity Commission has published a new report bringing together the themes and wider issues arising from its compliance work over the last year...
Key themes and illustrative case studies (awful warnings of how not to run your charity) from the inquiry reports include:
- Avoiding confusion through good governance. ‘Be clear about roles and responsibilities’.
- Fighting fraud with financial controls. ‘Organisations with weak internal controls and poor collective responsibility are always likely to be more vulnerable to fraud.’
- Fundraising offers. ‘Ensure your gift horse does not become a Trojan Horse’.
- Vulnerable beneficiaries. ‘No trustee board of a charity working with vulnerable people should assume the rules don’t apply to them.’
- Tackling the threat of terrorism. ‘The UK’s anti terrorism legislations applies to all organisations, including charities.’
- The damage of disputes. ‘Charities are invariably started by people who feel passionate about a cause. This conviction can be a powerful force.’
- Prioritising protection.‘We are just as likely to take up serious issues of conern with small charities as with large ones.’
The Commission used its formal power to make a total of 490 orders compared with 329 in the previous year, including seven trustee suspensions, six removals, two interim management appointments and 28 orders restricting transactions and preventing payments. A spokesperson told Caritas: ‘Over the last year there has been the tendency of trustees to take it upon themselves to “turn the other cheek” when they find out about past convictions or question marks of a fellow-trustee or worker. This is really serious – they must put the safety of their beneficiaries first. They do not have the right to put them at t risk based on their own personal, “redemptive” philosophies and we've had to deal with too many such cases this year.’
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