Commission faces "extremely challenging" funding drop 3

Finance | Gareth Jones | 20 Oct 2010

The Charity Commission will see its annual funding drop by 27 per cent over the next four years as a result of the government’s comprehensive spending review.

The regulator said it anticipates reducing its workforce by around 140 full-time staff in order to cope with a reduction in its funding to £21.3m by the 2014/15 financial year.

The full breakdown of its planned funding is:

2010/11 (current year): £29.3m
2011/12 £26.5m
2012/13 £25.7m
2013/14 £22.0m
2014/15 £21.3m

Its capital funding is also being reduced by 50 per cent to £0.4m each year.

In addition to the reduction in staff, the Commission is to undertake a comprehensive review of its strategy and operating principles, and continue to cut regulation costs with initiatives such as moving more services online and reducing back office administration costs.

It will begin a public consultation on the strategic review in the next few days.

Business as usual “not an option”

Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather called the settlement “extremely challenging” and said naturally the regulator was “disappointed”.

“Clearly a very different approach is now needed - business as usual is simply not an option. We will need to make significant changes to the way in which we engage with charities and the public, the services we offer, and the scope and shape of our regulatory activity.

“This will not be easy, but we are determined to continue to develop the Commission as an innovative, confident and flexible modern regulator, within the resources available.

“We remain committed to maintaining the high levels of public trust and confidence that charities currently enjoy, reducing the administration burden on charities and enabling them to maximise their impact.”

Directory: Charity Commission
Who's Who: Suzi Leather

Place a comment

Jay Kennedy
Head of Policy
Directory of Social Change
21 Oct 2010

Karl - whether it's inflation adjusted or not, I can't see how this settlement jives with the Coalition Agreement commitment to help 'support creation and expansion of charities'. There will be a limit to the efficiencies the Commission can make and they will simply have to stop some major areas of activity.

[Reply]

Karl Wilding
Head of Research
NCVO
20 Oct 2010

Are these numbers adjusted for inflation? In other words, is the budget being cut by this much in cash terms, with the CC having to deal with inflation on top?

[Reply]

CM
20 Oct 2010

Perhaps the chairman might consider taking a drop in pay even look at her travel costs both home to office and business travel.

[Reply]

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.