A prominent Muslim charity leader has warned the Charity Commission that scrutiny is falling "disproportionately" on Muslim charities because of counter-terror legislation.
Abdurahman Sharif, operations manager at the Muslim Charities Forum, an umbrella body for Muslim charities, told Civil Society News that since 2001, when new counter-terrorism legislation came to force, charities have been under increased scrutiny.
“Disproportionately, this burden of suspicion has fallen upon Muslim charities, whose activities, funding streams and financial transactions have been unreasonably scrutinised,” he said.
Following government scrutiny of the Charity Commission last year he said “there has been a perception that Islamic charities have been targeted in terms of inquires”.
He said: “There has to be a balance between the regulatory activity of the Commission and the work it does supporting the sector.”
Sharif said that the regulator should "support the growth of the sector" and that regulation should not "put off people who may want to set up a charity to a do a project”.
“The fact is that in the UK there has been very little evidence of abuse,” he said. “Is it fair for two charities that have committed crimes to affect the other 180,000 that are doing good work? It is a question of proportionality.”
He added that complying with counter terrorism legislation was already a “bureaucratic burden” for smaller charities and that it created “additional costs that are difficult for smaller organisations to cope with".
Sharif called for there to be more support in terms of training and capacity building to address the reasons that charities ran into governance difficulties.
The Muslim Charities Forum is currently working with the Commission on improving and simplifying guidance for faith charities as part of its work with the faith and cohesion unit.
A Home Affairs select committee report on counter-terrorism today recommended the Charity Commission be given additional resources and powers.
A spokeswoman for the Commission said the public events it holds, particularly for smaller and medium sized charities, do discuss financial management and governance issues to help trustees better understand their legal duties and responsibilities under charity law.
“We have a statutory function to identify and investigate abuse and mismanagement in charities and we have made it a recent priority to strengthen our approach to tackling abuse and mismanagement. There is public and charity sector support for this. But, we have also been clear that we have wider statutory duties that we must be adequately funded to fulfil,” the spokeswoman said.
“We agree that fundamentally our regulatory work must be proportionate, and it is.”
Commission opens statutory inquiry
The Charity Commission yesterday opened a statutory inquiry into Islamic Education and Research Academy over payments to trustees and its relationship with a connected company.
IERA’s objectives include the advancement of Islam, producing Islamic education resources, training Islamic educators in public speaking and carrying out research into issues facing the Islamic faith. It hosts a number of conferences throughout the year.
It was registered in 2009; its latest set of accounts, year-end June 2013, shows an income of £818,000 and spending of £822,000.
In 2012, two trustees were paid for their roles as independent consultants. Saquib Sattar received £16,700 for his role as a speaker and consultant and Anthony Green received £25,616 for his role as a speaker. Green & Chambers, a firm owned by Green and anther trustee, Timothy Chambers was paid £18,000 as a speaker's fee.
The Commission’s inquiry opened on 7 March. IERA filed its 2013 accounts on 30 April. These accounts state that just Sattar was paid just a fraction of the previous year’s fee, £2,800 for his role as a speaker and consultant.
