Nick Hurd has faced a grilling in parliamentary questions over how the Charity Commission would be expected to perform its main functions in the face of cuts amounting to a third of its funding.

In written questions published yesterday Labour minister Jim Dobbin asked the minister for civil society if he would take steps to ensure cuts to the Cabinet Office budget would not affect the Commission’s ability to regulate, investigate allegations of fraud and investigate allegations of diverting funds to international terrorist organisations. Hurd advised that cuts to the Cabinet Office budget would "have no bearing on the Commission's ability to carry out its statutory duties".

Dobbin’s second question, “What assessment has (Hurd) made of the likely effects of the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review on the Charity Commission's ability to discharge its statutory duties to (a) regulate and (b) support the charitable sector?,” was referred by Hurd to Charity Commission chief, Sam Younger, to respond.

Younger advised that, as previously reported, the cuts would mean 140 full-time posts would be lost and that a “comprehensive review of strategy and operating principles” would be undertaken. But he also added that the review of the Charities Act, expected in 2011, would provide “an opportunity to review the legislative framework” and that reducing the cost of regulation by moving more services online would help to reduce administration costs.