The Cabinet Office is still insisting that the Charity Commission website should be subsumed within the new single web portal for central government, gov.uk, despite representations to the contrary from the regulator.

On 2 January the government announced that six of 24 government departments have now moved their corporate websites to gov.uk, with more to follow soon.

As a non-ministerial government department, the Charity Commission reports directly to Parliament and is supposed to be independent of government despite being funded from central government funds. Yet it is one of those on the list for integration into gov.uk.

Last summer, when the Charity Commission learned that its website was one of those earmarked for integration, it asked for an exemption, claiming that such a move would damage perceptions that the regulator is independent of the government.

But the Cabinet Office refused the appeal, and last week a spokesman told civilsociety.co.uk: “I can confirm that the Charity Commission will be moving to gov.uk…in the period April 2013 to March 2014, at a time to be agreed.”

When the Charity Commission’s new chair, William Shawcross, joined the regulator in October, he told a journalist that he would be asking the Cabinet Office to reconsider the dictat. But last week a Commission spokeswoman said this had not yet happened, as the regulator was still trying to bottom out the implications of the move.

“I don’t think there has been any further direct contact with the Cabinet Office since our appeal was turned down but our web team have kept in touch with GDS - Government Digital Services – in the meantime,” she said.

“We’re still trying to find out more from GDS about the implications. Inside Gov was only launched just before Christmas so things are moving all the time.

“One of the reasons we asked for the exemption was because at that stage we had to on the basis that we had no information at all about what the implications would be.”
Once these becomes clearer, the Commission will decide what steps to take next, she said.

Last September, the Commission’s chief executive Sam Younger told a public meeting that a relaunch of the website was planned for April 2013, and that the regulator had continued to increase its spending on its website team in order to improve the site’s usability, even while making cuts in other areas of the organisation.