The chair of a group of MPs has vowed to write to Number 10 after accusing the Charity Commission of “blundering” into a legal dispute with a parliamentary ombudsman.
At a Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) hearing yesterday, chair Simon Hoare said the commission did not appear “at all fit for purpose” after hearing evidence of its ongoing disagreement with Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).
While the commission challenged his assertion that it “blundered” into its legal challenge against the PHSO, Hoare said his committee would be writing to Number 10, the Department of Media, Culture and Sport and the Cabinet Office over the matter.
The disagreement between the PHSO and commission first came after the former published two reports – one regarding the experiences of a woman named Lara Hall and another about a man named Damian Murray – both of which criticised the charity regulator’s response to its recommended actions to improve.
The commission subsequently lodged the judicial review claim over these reports, questioning the PHSO’s authority to make such recommendations as an ombudsman, and the regulator’s power to implement them.
PHSO then accused the commission of preventing it from laying the critical reports before parliament, which the charity regulator denied.
In September last year, the ombudsman claimed that it had only been able to lay its reports before parliament following a motion successfully put forward by PACAC chair Hoare.
In March this year, the commission's judicial review against PHSO was denied permission to proceed by a judge.
Last month, PACAC announced that it would be scrutinising the ongoing disagreement between the two regulatory bodies.
Commission chair challenges ‘blundered’ accusation
Hoare said at the hearing yesterday that the regulator “blundered” into its legal challenge against the PHSO.
He said this caused “considerable upset” to the complainants, a “massive, additional and unnecessary” amount of work to the ombudsman and trouble to the courts.
Hoare added: “If you’re a new organisation of three men and a dog in a back bedroom, there may be a justification in all of that.
“But given the fact that the commission is not, that it can deploy £70,000 of taxpayers’ money to have external legal advice and to mount a challenge in the courts, suggests a certain degree of corporate maturity, which doesn’t seem to be manifest at all in how the commission conducted itself with regards to these cases.
“Ignorance, I’m afraid, will not be a justifiable defence.”
Later in the hearing, commission chair, Julia Unwin, challenged Hoare’s use of the word “blunder”, suggesting “misunderstanding” instead.
Unwin said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence in the paperwork that this was a blundering episode.
“I think there was a genuine concern about what this particular case might do – well certainly there was a concern for the complainants, and I register that every time I talk about this.
“But there was also a concern about what this would do for our future powers, recognising that safeguarding issues are affecting every public body.”
Hoare repeatedly defended his use of the word, adding that the disagreement between the two regulatory bodies was “effectively predicated on a misunderstanding – a professional misunderstanding – of the locus between the commission and the PHSO and the statutory remit of the PHSO.”
