Charities have a failing governance model, have been complacent about criticism, and have been too ready to justify poor practice by leaning on an excuse of “good works”, a new report claims.

A Blueprint for Restoring the Sector’s Reputation, published by Joe Saxton, found of consultancy nfpSynergy, outlines reasons why he believes the sector has attracted media criticism, and actions he believes need to be taken to restore the public’s trust in the sector.

Saxton’s key recommendations are published in a blog. His main points are:

Trusteeship needs a revolution

"The standard of charity trusteeship needs to be higher, both through better trustees and better practices. The code of good governance for the sector is at best treading water (though Northern Ireland has just relaunched its code), and at worst moribund."

Better media messages and spokespeople

"The sector’s performance in the face of media stories has been patchy to put it mildly. When the big stories have broken the sector has been unable to effectively counter the accusations made against us. We need better messages and a breadth of articulate spokespeople."

Forget our good works

"Because we are the charity sector, there is a tendency to believe that doing good works makes us different, and that we  can operate to a different set of criteria to the public or private sectors because of this. We must never let the good work of the sector make us feel we can do things that other sectors wouldn’t be able to get away with."

Create an Ofsted for charities

"There have been many attempts to find a way to evaluate the performance of charities. We need a kind of Ofsted for Charities which would have a set of key criteria about how charities were working. These could include: governance, financial management, effectiveness of mission delivery, fundraising, communications and so on. It wouldn’t be perfect or easy, but it would be an improvement on the status quo."

Better charity metrics and clearer accounts

"We need to provide clearer and better information to help people judge charities, both on how they spend their money and how well they do their job. This means changes to charity accounts, and also better ways of charities summarising the difference they have made. It also means a change in attitude by those who think that simple metrics are crass and inappropriate."

Create a 10-year plan

"During the last year, there was too much knee-jerk response by the sector to the media coverage. All the evidence is that the media and politicians will continue digging for dirt for the foreseeable future. This means there are no short-term fixes to the situation we are in. We need a 10 year plan to tackle it and not a series of sticking-plaster solutions."