Opinion

Public trust on the rise, Commission reports

Finance | 2 Jun 2008

In a world seemingly becoming ever more cynical, it is extremely encouraging to see the findings of the Charity Commission’s recent trust and confidence report.

(See 'Public trust in charities on the up, finds Commission').

Contrary to research that has hinted at a worrying decline in the sector’s strong relationship with Joe public, the Commission has revealed that things have actually improved over the last three years. While it may be a limited achievement to be trusted more than banks and the government in the current climate, the message is clear. Charities still enjoy a healthy relationship with those they work for and fundraise from.

Acevo spoke for all advocates of bringing things back down to earth when it stated that charities must not become complacent concerning the public’s trust. “The report shows that the general public are ready to challenge the performance of charities. We must increase our capacity to be able to handle such challenges.”

Increasing knowledge about how charities spend will be a big factor in maintaining the public’s trust, deputy chief executive Peter Kyle opined sagely. “We should expect to have to justify and provide information concerning our core expenditure. We should be bold about the need for solid infrastructure and organisational capacity. No third sector organisation can run on thin air and assuredly the general public would not want them to.”

All very sensible – especially as the Commission’s report found that not knowing how a charity spends its money is the top factor for why people trust some charities less, and 60 per cent of respondents think charities are spending too much on salaries and administration.

But then came the twist. “It is time for this debate around core costs to hit the mainstream,” thundered Kyle. The world may be becoming more cynical but it is hard to be anything else when you consider that acevo banging its full-cost-recovery drum again comes a couple of weeks after the relaunch of its own full-cost-recovery resource.

Stuart Etherington, the NCVO chief executive, expressed the cautionary position eloquently at last month’s CFDG conference when he said that the sector is “in charge of its own destiny” and the rise of a more sceptical citizen means that “we do good because we are good won’t wash any longer”.

And the Institute of Fundraising’s outgoing chair Joe Saxton’s made some interesting comments, after receiving ProfessionalFundraising’s most influential person in fundraising accolade for the fourth year running last month. Basically he praised the fundraising sector as the only one that has really taken steps to improve trust and confidence, through IoF’s codes and self-regulation. While this view is a little parochial, he is correct in his assertion that charities shouldn’t take the inherent faith that the public have in them for granted. It is no time for complacency and the aim should be for the Commission’s next survey to report another significant increase in levels of trust and confidence.

Turning points

There has been a lot of talk about the government doing u-turns recently, for example, consider the hullabaloo about the 10 pence basic rate of income tax issue. It does seem a strange appraisal of a governing process to criticise the powers that be for introducing something, and then criticise them again for responding to that criticism. Is it weak leadership or merely an honest realisation that a mistake has been made and needs correcting?

At first glance, the decision by the Charity Commission to grant charitable status to Odstock (see 'Odstock sets up trust to overcome barrier to charitable status') appeared to be an example of just that. However, closer examination of the facts showed that far from being a u-turn, Odstock Private Care Ltd (OPCL), the private healthcare organisation which failed to gain charitable status in September 2007 because its fees were too high, has in fact set up a separate charitable trust. This will operate independently of OPCL, though it will receive gift aided profits from the company.

This is a prime example of an organisation creatively assessing and revising its public benefit position and presenting an alternative solution to satisfy the regulator. We can expect a lot more of this over the coming months as charities grapple with the new requirements, especially those charging high fees.

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