A disability charity that knowingly employed a convicted sex offender as its chief executive has been censured by the Charity Commission after a year-long inquiry in which the trustees failed to accept the gravity of the error.

The Commission has kept the identity of the charity, and those connected with it, under wraps in order to comply with the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act.

The charity, which acts as an umbrella organisation for other disability groups and whose premises are often visited by children of disabled parents carrying out work placements, has been ordered by the Commission to appoint at least two more trustees and devise appropriate safeguarding policies and procedures.

If it cannot do this by September, or its decides the charity is no longer viable, it must wind up the charity.

The case came to the attention of the Commission early last year when two local authorities that funded the charity, made a joint complaint alleging that the trustees had knowingly employed the sex offender and refused to carry out CRB checks because they felt such checks were an invasion of privacy.

The CEO had joined the organisation in January 2009; the chair knew about his previous conviction. At the time of joining, the CEO reportedly knew that the Crown Prosecution Service was considering charging him with a second sexual offence, but did not disclose this to the charity. He was subsequently charged and later acquitted of the second offence.

Given the seriousness of the case, the Commission opened a statutory inquiry in April 2009 and immediately suspended the chief executive from his duties. But he and the trustees made representations to the Commission stating they did not consider him to be unsuitable for the job and requesting the regulator to review its decision. It did so, but upheld it. At that stage the trustees informed the Commission they had already decided to suspend the CEO on full pay as a result of a move by one of the councils to suspend funding to the charity if the CEO was still in post.

In November 2009 he finally resigned.

Decision made 'by disabled people for disabled people'

The Commission concluded its investigation in March 2010. During the inquiry, it became evident that the trustees felt the councils’ reaction to the fact that the CEO had not been required to undergo a CRB check was “grossly disproportionate”.

They told the investigators that they do not accept that disabled people are ‘vulnerable’ by virtue of their impairment; rather they are made vulnerable by the attitudes and misconceptions of wider society. They believed that their charity was trying to redress this, and saw the recruitment and retention of the CEO was a “decision made by disabled people for disabled people”. Any decision imposed by wider society that undermined the trustees in turn undermines the charity and the disabled community it serves.

The Commission concluded there had been mismanagement in the administration of the charity, a serious lack of effective governance and that the trustees had failed to discharge their duties.