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Charity Commission for Northern Ireland receives 100th charity concern

Governance | Niki May Young | 27 Jan 2012

The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has published the key lessons learnt from the first 100 concerns lodged about charities across the country.

The regulator gained powers to investigate organisations granted charitable status by the HMRC in February 2011. Since then it has received a steady average of around 10 concerns about charities per month.

The overall majority of concerns lodged with the Commission came from members of the public (86 per cent) with the remaining 14 concerns being referred to the Commission by government departments such as HMRC or Trading Standards. Of all concerns received 74 are now closed and 26 remain open.

The Commission has outlined four key themes apparent in the 100 concerns:

• Poor governance
• Poor financial control
• Lack of transparency
• The damage of disputes 

The concerns receive vary in seriousness but have included one charity which failed to hold AGMs, another which demonstrated poor financial control to the extent of not documenting public collections, a charity which had publicised incorrect contact details, and another where a personal dispute over the election of board members led to a concern being lodged.

Concerns will receive one of four treatments after their initial assessment by the Commission which every concern receives: referral or no further action; a self-regulatory enquiry; a regulatory enquiry, or the most serious course of action - a statutory enquiry. 

The Commission is yet to close a regulatory or statutory enquiry in relation to a concern about a charity and a large number of cases have resulted in a self-regulatory approach.

Some of the open concerns remain so due to when they were received but others are more complex, advised the Commission's chief executive, Francis McCandless (pictured): "We're looking at a number of enquiries that could become serious, but they are in the very early stages," she said.

The Commission was established in November 2009 to implement the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008. Registration of charities with the Commission has since been held up due to a legal dispute over the wording of the Act. The Commission does have investigative powers over the 6,500-plus organisations in Northern Ireland granted charitable status by the HMRC. Prior to its establishment all charity investigations were undertaken by the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

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Who's Who: Frances McCandless