Commission 'should set up terror intelligence unit'

Finance | 1 Jun 2007

The Charity Commission should send investigators on site visits overseas to confirm that charitable funds are being properly spent instead of merely relying on checking charities' accounts, the government has suggested.

The regulator should also boost its in-house intelligence function and train its caseworkers as investigators in order to root out the terrorist threat within the charity sector, according to the consultation document published by the Home Office and HM Treasury last month.

The paper is a review of the safeguards that already exist to protect the sector from terrorists who may seek to use charities - either bogus or legitimate - to obtain money to finance their activities. It concludes that while the Charity Commission isconsidered a model charity regulator throughout the world, it has no proper strategy to deal with the terrorist threat; that its existing guidance is 'out of date and not as comprehensive as it could be', and that it is not sufficiently proactive in helping charities to assess and tackle potential abuse.

The report disclosed that during 2006, the UK's Financial Intelligence Unit received 48 'suspicious activity reports' from the financial services sector about suspected links between charities and terror funds. Of these, 34 were investigated further.

It also revealed that eight charities were alleged to have been linked to the London bombings in 2005 and that another six are suspected of links to terror networks that are thought to be behind two more foiled attacks.

Directory: Charity Commission | Office of the Third Sector

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.