The Charity Commission will consult on charging charities to pay for regulation, it said in a strategic plan published yesterday.
The strategic plan for 2015-18 said the Commission has shifted resources into monitoring and investigations. It has identified four key strategic aims for the Commission which are “protecting charities from abuse or mismanagement”; “enabling trustees to run their charities effectively”; “encouraging greater transparency and accountability in charities”; and “operating as an efficient expert regulator with sustainable funding”.
'Alternative funding sources'
The plan says the Charity Commission aims to reduce its dependence on taxpayer funding, and will do this by actively pursuing "alternative funding sources", including consulting on proposals for an annual charge for registered charities.
It says it will invest the additional funding given to it by the Treasury in 2014 in “redesigning our operating model and business processes to reduce complexity and achieve higher efficiency and in new digital applications, making it easier for trustees and others to deal with us”.
The Commission is currently funded entirely by the taxpayer, and has seen its budget reduce by nearly half in real terms since 2007, to £22m.
Its strategic plan sets out how it expects to meet these aims, including improving the speed and effectiveness which it investigates wrongdoing, and applying its powers more robustly in order to better protect charities from abuse and mismanagement.
It has also said it will make better use of data so resources can be focused on higher risk activities, and improve data sharing with other regulators and government agencies.
The regulator has said it will its strategic aims by preventing problems arising through “more and better targeted guidance and outreach work”.
The Commission said that “making legally correct decisions which protect the integrity of the register, and providing the public with up to date, accurate information about charities continues to be a strategic priority”.
It will introduce an improved registration process, and become quicker at removing “charities that cease to exist, become insolvent, or which we decide are no longer, or never were, charities”, in order to “protect the integrity of the register of trustees”.
Transformation plan
In its annual report, also published yesterday, the Commission outlined eight main projects as part of its “transformation programme” which are all in the early stages of development. These are:
- Update its risk framework.
- Develop and implement new case management systems able to support the new risk-led approach.
- Deliver improved collection, understanding and analysis of data to support decision making and improve data access to support case working.
- Improve functionality of the charities’ database to improve searching; enable new data to be held to support case working and the public charity search tool.
- Deliver more and better online forms to allow self-service for simple, low-risk transactions and more efficient submission of charity accounts and online returns.
- Jointly with HMRC, enable charities to register more efficiently with the Commission and HMRC.
- Jointly with Companies House, agree data sharing information standards for financial returns.
- Deliver frontline business process and structural change to free-up staff to do high-risk work. Reduce accommodation costs, deliver culture change and aim to become an employer of choice.
