The Charity Commission is looking at reducing by around two-thirds the number of staff whose main job is concerned with ensuring regulatory compliance by the sector, civilsociety.co.uk has learned.

Senior Commission managers are understood to be proposing to cut compliance staff numbers by around two-thirds to about 30, from the present figure of just under 100 that work in the compliance team under executive director of legal services and compliance, Kenneth Dibble.

The Commission is having its funding cut by a third in real terms over the next four years and so is having to completely restructure its service and staffing structure.

The Commission would not confirm or deny the reported new compliance staff numbers, saying it was still in the midst of staff consultation. But a spokeswoman insisted it was “barking up the wrong tree” to directly compare the old compliance remit with the new teams being created.

She said: “We are moving to a completely different structure involving four multi-disciplinary operational teams on all four sites and then a team called Investigations and Enforcement. These five teams will replace Compliance and Charity Services functions.

“There is no one team in the new structure to directly compare with the current Compliance function as some of the work it currently deals with will be dealt with within the multi-discipline teams.

“We have always said in general terms that our new funding position would be challenging, but that we would continue to prioritise the most serious issues, including fraud.”

But she would not disclose how many people would make up the new Investigations and Enforcement team, saying numbers are not settled yet. “And it’s likely that compliance staff will be absorbed into the operational teams, but again this is all too early to be any more specific about,” she said.

Parliamentary question

The suggestion comes two weeks after Labour MP Louise Ellman asked minister for civil society Nick Hurd what assessment he had made of the potential effect of changes in staff numbers at the Commission’s Liverpool office on the regulator’s ability to deal with fraud.

Hurd responded: “As a risk-based regulator, the Commission will continue to intervene decisively in individual cases where the identified risk to public confidence is substantial and where it can have the most impact.”

He concluded: “I am confident that the Commission can continue to be an effective regulator of charities in England and Wales within the resources allocated it.”