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Sector taskforce to outline vision for better regulation to Dame Suzi

Governance | Tania Mason | 6 May 2010

A new Acevo taskforce that is drawing up proposals for a less stringent regulatory framework for the sector, has lined up a meeting with Charity Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather later this month to discuss its ideas.

The taskforce, chaired by BTCV chair Rupert Evenett, wants to cut red tape and create a more permissive culture within the sector, one that facilitates openness and transparency and where demands of compliance are more proportionate to the associated risks.

It will review best practice from other regulators and present its initial high-level review with recommendations for improving the sector’s regulation, at the Acevo CEO Summit on 17 June. A meeting with Dame Suzi is planned before then, Evenett said, though Acevo could not confirm a date.

“At the moment there is an awful lot of regulation about the things we can’t do, and if someone wants to become a trustee they are always getting warned about the downsides, the risks of getting it wrong,” Evenett told Civil Society. “The current system seems to be focused on risk averseness rather than on openness to opportunities.”

The taskforce also includes, among others, Acevo’s former deputy CEO Nick Aldridge, now chief executive of Missionfish; Sayer Vincent’s Kate Sayer; Richard Johnson, managing director of Serco Welfare to Work; John Stewart, company secretary at the Wellcome Trust, and RNIB chair Kevin Carey. The work done last year by Carey’s progressive governance group has been merged into the taskforce’s agenda.

Evenett explained: “There are a lot of people out there working hard and doing good work around the detail of regulation – CFDG and the Charity Law Association, for example - but they are all coming at it as a legalistic concept rather than a positive vision of what it should be like to allow us to do our job better.

“At the moment we have to leap through 17 hoops to prove why we should be allowed to do things.”

Re-examine public benefit test

The public benefit test also needed revision, Evenett said, so that it helps charities provide more benefit instead of spending their limited resources proving that they do good work.

“The Charity Commission is likely to face budget cuts so we are saying to them, we want to help you do regulation in a different way, that is more transparent and proportionate, that helps us to generate the biggest public benefit we can,” he said.

“We’re not bashing the Charity Commission around the head, we hope to save them time, money and effort.”

Removing duplication

There are some quick wins available, Evenett said, such as removing the duplication of regulation required by different regulators. Care charities, for instance, are subject to charity regulation and social care regulation, and too often have to supply the same information in different ways to each regulator.  There should be agreement between regulators that it only needs to be provided once.

Evenett cited the Office of Fair Trading as an example of a regulator that does regulation in a “proportionate, high-impact” way.  “They don’t get involved in everything just because they can,” he said.

The taskforce is inviting people from the sector to share any experiences that may be pertinent to its review – email Nick Carey at Acevo on nickc@acevo.org.uk.

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