The Charity Commission has revealed it has an ongoing compliance case open into Oxfam GB, in which the regulator is considering governance and leadership issues raised since Halima Begum’s controversial departure as chief executive.
Begum left Oxfam in December, after the charity reported that “serious concerns” had been raised about her leadership.
Her departure came shortly after she had overseen a restructure at the charity, which included 142 redundancies, in an effort to tackle increasing salary costs.
Begum had also raised a whistleblowing complaint against Oxfam’s last permanent chair Charles Gurassa in October before his departure a month later.
Several charity sector colleagues – including Oxfam trustee Balwant Singh, who resigned in protest – criticised the aid organisation’s handling of Begum’s exit and it submitted a serious incident report to the commission.
Singh called on the commission to remove Oxfam’s board, install a caretaker leadership and launch a statutory inquiry into “governance competence and serious potential failures” at the charity.
Civil Society understands Singh met the commission in January after he tendered his resignation but the regulator did not reveal any formal intervention at Oxfam at the time.
The commission has now confirmed that it opened a compliance case into Oxfam a year ago in relation to the charity’s restructure and is considering the recent issues raised from Begum’s departure as part of this.
“In light of the serious concerns raised, we are considering issues relating to the governance and leadership of Oxfam GB as part of an ongoing compliance case,” a spokesperson said.
“As part of this case, we are assessing and gathering information and engaging with trustees to inform our regulatory response.”
Review commissioned by Oxfam ongoing
Oxfam announced that it had commissioned a separate review of its board processes in January, to be conducted by a senior external lawyer.
It is assessing whether the board and trustees acted in line with their duties following Begum’s departure “and if relevant, prior to that”.
A spokesperson for the charity told Civil Society that this review is ongoing and that it would share its findings “in due course”.
