William Shawcross has warned that the Charity Commission needs “adequate funding and stronger legal powers if it is to meet Parliament’s expectations”, in response to the Public Accounts Committee’s recent damning report on its effectiveness.
In a statement today Shawcross also warns that the Charity Commission's funding position "is simply unsustainable.”
The Public Accounts Committee report, published in February, was severely critical of the Charity Commission. The PAC said it “continues to perform poorly and is still failing to regulate charities effectively”, despite five interventions by the Committee since 1987.
It concluded that it had “little confidence” that the Charity Commission has the leadership capability to tackle its “significant failings” and radically reform. The Committee made a series of recommendations.
Today, the Charity Commission has formally responded to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
It says it has already implemented a number of the recommendations in the report, including an organisation-wide strategic review, using its statutory powers to regulate charities more effectively, and transforming the Commission’s culture and operations.
But it rejects the PAC’s view that the Commission’s record is one of “enduring failings”. It says that since the PAC’s last scrutiny in 2002 there have been considerable changes not only in the Commission’s statutory responsibilities, under the 2006 Charities Act, but also in Parliamentary and public expectations, as well as massive funding reductions.
William Shawcross, chair of the Charity Commission, said: “I fully accept that the Commission must strengthen its approach to tackling the most serious cases of abuse and mismanagement in charities. And indeed we have made significant improvements in this area already.
"But Parliament has granted us a broad regulatory remit. If we are to fulfil all the expectations placed on us while at the same time increasing our serious case work, we must be adequately funded. Our current funding position is simply unsustainable.”
Shawcross added that the regulator needs stronger legal powers in order to prevent and tackle abuse and mismanagement: “We have long argued that our powers are inadequate. It is absurd, for example, that the Commission has no general power to disqualify individuals who have demonstrated that they are unsuitable to serve as charity trustees.
"Earlier this year, the Cabinet Office consulted on proposals to strengthen our powers, which we fully supported. I urge the government to deliver on those proposals. I have written to the Prime Minister asking him to find time to include the extension of our powers in the legislative programme of the next Parliament.”
In February, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, a Liberal Democrat peer and a government whip in the Lords, said the government will look “very carefully” at whether there is a need for more funding for the Charity Commission.
Lord Wallace told a committee of the House of Lords that “if the new Charity Commission board can make a strong and positive case for additional resources, the government will look at that very carefully”.
Wallace was speaking during a debate on the effectiveness of the Charity Commission in the House of Lords grand committee, a forum for peers to raise issues with ministers.
Wallace said that resources at the Commission were now “extremely hard stretched”, and that the Commission may have to be strengthened if the sector was to have the “clear regulation” it needed.
