Professor Paul Palmer has stood down from the independent expert group on expenses in the wake of revelations that he also sits on the board of a for-profit company that has launched a software tool to help charities report their expenses.

In his place, the panel has appointed two new members – former chief Charity Commissioner John Stoker and academic Peter Grant.

In a statement, the expenses panel said it would like to thank Prof Palmer for his “valuable contribution”.

Charity Finance exposed the fact that Palmer was on the board of Charity Business as well as serving on the expenses panel two weeks ago, and called for him to step down.  He had declared a conflict of interest to the board of Charity Business in September, but had not been upfront with the independent panel, and admitted that this was an error of judgement.

New members

John Stoker, who is now a consultant, was chief Charity Commissioner between 1999 and 2005, the first Commissioner for the Compact between 2006 and 2008 and currently serves on the Law Society's Audit Committee, as well as being a director of the Responsible Gambling Fund.

Peter Grant was director of operations at the New Opportunities Fund between 1999 and 2005, where he developed and delivered over £4.5bn of funding programmes. He has developed the world’s first full masters-level programme in grantmaking and philanthropy at Cass Business School, where he is academic leader of the philanthropy and grantmaking management and governance programmes.

The expenses panel is expecting to publish guidance for the sector around the end of the year.