Chief executives’ body Acevo has called on the Cabinet Office and the Charity Commission to change the regulator’s governance set-up, saying the current board has "taken it to the point of not being able to do its primary job".

Yesterday Civil Society News published an analysis of the current composition of the Commission’s board, recent developments in the regulator’s policy-making, and widespread concerns from several sector bodies, including NCVO.

Responding to the report, Asheem Singh, director of public policy at Acevo, said: “For some time, the Commission has appeared increasingly to be driven by single issue agendas.

“While being more interventionist and publicity-hungry, we have been concerned that its leadership has taken it to the point of no longer being able to do its primary job: of regulating and supporting our nation’s charities to meet regulatory requirements while they help vulnerable people at the same time.

“At the same time there have been instances of the Commission shooting themselves in the foot, such as their initial support for board member Gwythian Prins’ alleged party political essay on Europe, currently under investigation.  

“Civil Society News’ investigation adds new dimensions to those concerns. We cannot have a regulator whose governance arrangements are suspect.

He added that policy making should be “driven by experts”, “not by a small subsection of the regulator’s board.”

“Action needs to be taken now to ensure the regulator gets its house into order,” he said.

Singh said that the Commission does not address concerns then “the supervising minister will have to step in and get a grip if the Commission cannot or will not satisfactorily explain the extraordinary arrangements depicted in this report.”

“That would be a grave crisis for the Charity Commission. We hope they do the right thing, confront these concerns head on and work to a proper resolution - anything else would merely add fuel to the fire that the Commission no longer is in touch with the needs and legitimate expectations of charities and the wider public.”

Others who have expressed concerns include the Charity Finance Group,  Directory of Social Change, Navca and New Philanthropy Capital.

Yesterday in response to concerns the Charity Commission said: “The Charities Act 2011 gives the Commission its constitutional authority and sets out clearly the role of the board, which is markedly different to that of most other non-executive directors of public bodies.

“The Commission accepted the NAO’s recommendations to ‘keep under review its level of involvement in executive decision-making’ and to ‘complete the review of the governance framework and assessment of board effectiveness’.  
 
“The independent review of board effectiveness concluded that the Board should decide which 'functions to reserve to itself and which to delegate to the chief executive and staff' and that it 'has the authority to intervene directly in operational matters, particularly those which affect the Commission’s reputation and performance'.
 
“As a result of the review, changes to the Commission’s governance framework were made. The framework, and a summary of the review of Board effectiveness, are available on the Commission’s website. The Commission has kept the NAO informed of the progress it is making against the recommendations and expect it to follow up with the Commission in the coming months. The Board continues to operate in line with the role set out in the Charities Act 2011 and its own governance framework.”

The Cabinet Office has said that an announcement about board reappointments or recruitments will be made “in due course”.