The public would have more trust in the sector if the Commission stood up to political pressure instead of agreeing it needs to become a tougher regulator, charity lawyer Philip Kirkpatrick has said.
Kirkpatrick, deputy managing partner at Bates Wells Braithwaite, said today that the Commission should not have said that its existing legal powers were undermining its ability to be an effective regulator, and that the new legal powers it is to be granted are of limited value.
Speaking at the NCVO and BWB trustee conference this morning on the question “Is regulation out of hand?” Kirkpatrick told delegates that the Charity Commission should have stood up to the political pressure it faced. He said that the message from the government and the Charity Commission instead ramped up concerns about the charity sector.
He said: “The public would have more faith in charities if a public authority like the Charity Commission stood up to the political pressure on it, stood up for the sector and gave rid to the lie of the idea that charities are riddled with abuse, mismanagement and fraud.”
He added that the Prime Minister’s announcement of the Commission’s new powers and funding made at a recent meeting of the Extremism Taskforce, where he described it as “funding to tackle abuse, including extremist activity in the sector” only made public opinion of the sector a lot worse.
He said: “The Charity Commission is, quite understandably, bowing to political pressure it has faced. It is accepting the criticism of itself as being an inadequate regulator and in its public announcements it is assisting and spreading the sense that all is not well in the world of charities and that something must be done.”
Kirkpatrick also said that the Commission should not have said that charities will no longer get the “benefit of the doubt” and that all mismanagement is unacceptable. He told the room full of trustees that he wants the charities to be given the message that “the Commission is on their side, your side, and will be understanding of honest and even stupid mistakes”.
