The chief executive of the Directory of Social Change (DSC) has criticised a requirement to report on impact in the new Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP).
According to the new rules, impact reporting will be “a ‘must’ for all charities” preparing accounts for financial years starting on or after 1 January in the UK.
Speaking yesterday at DSC’s annual Charity Accountants’ Online Conference, Debra Allcock Tyler warned that many charities are unable to measure their impact easily and would instead resort to a “cut and pasted” statement.
Allcock Tyler described the new SORP as “an important document” overall but said its public consultation, which ran between March and June, “wasn’t nearly long enough” for stakeholders to engage.
“Nonetheless, we all had a good go at it, and we really thought through – not just me, us, at DSC, us as a sector and representative bodies and so on – what could be done better, what could be improved,” she said.
“And the honest truth is, hardly any of the recommendations we made were adopted, which is soul-destroying.”
‘We can’t measure impact in that way’
Allcock Tyler told attendees that it would be difficult for her own organisation to measure the impact of the books it produces.
“We can tell you how many get bought, but we have absolutely no idea whatsoever if anybody’s actually reading the damn thing when they’ve bought it,” she said.
“And even if they’ve read it, has it made any difference to what they’re trying to do? We can’t measure impact in that way.”
Equally, she said churches and youth clubs regulated by the Charity Commission cannot easily measure impact.
“How the hell do you do that as a church? Is it that the church officials have to stand around the collection box, nervously administering questionnaires that say: ‘On a scale of one to five, how much closer do you feel to God?’”
“Or: ‘Mrs. Martin, did your prayer for your son to get a job work?’ I mean, it’s just so silly. And I say the same about youth clubs. Youth clubs, they’re self-evident, just the existence of a youth club where young people can go be a responsible adult, it’s got to be a good thing.”
She added that attempts to prove the impact of a youth club could make young people feel “monitored and prodded”.
Requirement ‘will have the opposite effect’
On how charities would comply with the new requirement, Allcock Tyler said: “It’s going to be like the public benefit statement. It’ll just be cut and pasted year on year on year.
“People will come up with some kind of way of wording what impact looks like, and it’ll fail in its intent.
“I get the purpose. I understand what they’re trying to do. They’re just trying to encourage charities to really think through what’s the effect of the work they’re having.
“But it’s like hobnail boots on a parquet floor. It’s not the right way to go about doing it, and I think it’ll have the opposite effect.”
