Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, has reappointed William Shawcross as chair of Charity Commission for a second three-year term.

His role has been expanded from two to three days per week, but he has not been given a pay rise. The Cabinet Office said his reappointment was in order to give continuity while the Commission completes its transformation programme.

The Commission is one year into its transformation programme, with the ambition of becoming a tougher regulator for the charity sector. The National Audit Office recently published a follow-up report which said the Commission had made a good start, but that there is still more to do.

The government recently gave the Commission an extra £9m to upgrade its systems and help it combat extremist abuse of charities and tackle fraud.

Shawcross' leadership has been criticised by various figures in the charity sector over the past three years. Earlier this month Andrew Hind, editor of Charity Finance and former chief executive of the Commission, said that the Shawcross era has been “characterised by a continual stream of maverick interventions from the chair, which have lacked context and strategic coherence (CEO pay, terrorist infiltration of charities, proposals for changes to the annual return)”.