The Charity Commission is planning to update its risk management guidance for trustees, its chief executive has revealed.
Speaking yesterday at the Charity Finance Group’s (CFG) annual conference in London, David Holdsworth admitted that the CC26 guidance, which was issued in 2010, needs updating.
His comments came after one of the attendees said CC26 is “pretty out of date and not very helpful”, and asked him if the commission had any plans to look at it.
In response, Holdsworth said the commission is currently working on it in partnership with CFG’s chief executive Caron Bradshaw and other sector leaders.
Backlog in reviewing guidance
Holdsworth said a lot of the commission’s guidance “has grown over the years” and that there is a “backlog in reviewing our guidance”, notably due to his organisation’s resources shrinking in recent years.
To try to address this, he told attendees the commission has created a specific guidance team.
“Caron has engaged with me on our risk guidance and we’ve created a bit of a joint working group [...] and Caron’s brought some sector leaders together to help us look at: how do we update the risk guidance, how do we make it more practical, and how do we make it more realistic?”
Holdsworth added the commission was “proportionate” in its response “whenever something goes wrong in a charity”.
“We don’t apply the same level of test to a small, local, kitchen-table charity as we do to a big multinational charity. We don’t apply the same tests.
“We do act in a proportional way. So, just to reassure you on that, we do take that into account in our compliance cases.
“But I accept the guidance does need updating and you should be pleased to hear we’re working with Caron and a number of other sector leaders on it at the moment.”
Spending review funding increase
At this month’s spending review, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the commission’s budget would increase by over a quarter to £37.9m next year.
During CFG’s conference, Holdsworth was asked by an attendee what the commission intends to do with the money.
In response, he said some of the commission’s systems and technology “haven’t kept pace and are quite challenging for trustees and people to navigate”.
“The first thing we’re doing is investing in that technology. Some of it will unlock some of our data. We have a wealth of data across the commission that you provide to us on an annual basis.
“And some of it is, how do we use that data and how do we use technology to regulate proactively, to head issues off, also to be more proactive in supporting charities where that data is telling us something is starting, perhaps, to go wrong or there’s a bit of an issue.
“So, it’s moving us more into the proactive and enabling space, [which] is where some of the money will go.”
Cracking impact reporting
Holdsworth said the spending review showed “the importance of data and evidence in future, ongoing spending rounds”, adding that “as the public purse tightens, being able to evidence is going to be really important”.
He said: “One of the things we’ve never been able to crack in the sector is impact reporting. It’s really patchy across the sector.
“What I want to do is work with the sector over the next two-and-a-bit years to say: ‘How do we crack that? How do we turn the annual return into a really impactful tool that shows the value and impact of the sector, both to the public but also to politicians?’”
He alluded to recent research that shows members of the general public think that either the commission or government is responsible for the activities carried out by individual charities.
“It’s going to become increasingly important that we can make visible to the public, and reconnect with them, just what the sector does on a day-to-day basis.
“And also to politicians, just how much it’s delivering for the nation – because that will make the difference in some of the upcoming spending rounds.”
Responding to Holdsworth’s speech, think tank NPC’s head of policy James Somerville said in a statement: “We welcome the increased focus on measurement and impact.”
He added: “It’s a testament to the progress that we’ve seen over the last decade on this issue that this is now so central to the sector’s mainstream thinking.”
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