The True and Fair Foundation has said that criticism of its report by the Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness is unjustified and "borders on the hysterical."
At the start of this year Cass academics published a paper criticising the True and Fair Foundation's first report, A Hornet's Nest: A Review of Charitable Spending by UK Charities. It took the piece down after being contacted by lawyers but has recently published an ammended version.
In a statement yesterday the charity addressed 11 issues raised by academics in detail and said: “The TFF report does not support any basis for the Charity Commission to examine TFF for misusing funds for political purposes or for allegedly straying from its charitable objectives.”
TFF’s charitable objectives include supporting small charities and its statement said: “It is extremely difficult for small charities to gain a share of voice in terms of funding, wider charity sector issues and high spending on fundraising by large charities creating an un-level playfield. TFF champions these charities and projects, which includes reports and articles on wider sector issues that are disadvantaging them.”
The statement said: “The Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness’ response to the TFF's Hornet's Nest report borders on the hysterical. There is no reason why economies of scale cannot be expected to be achieved by large charities.”
It claims that the Cass report contained “fundamental errors” and that: “In calling for a minimum charitable spend of at least 65 per cent, TFF hopes to encourage a wider debate leading to greater transparency and accountability across the sector.”
In responding to 11 points in the Cass report, which was republished with amendments last week, TFF said: “The authors of the Cass paper appear to have been reckless in producing their original and subsequent papers, failing the standard expected by an academic report… In our view, what has been published is amateurish and intellectually bankrupt.”
Cass said that it has made “one or two minor amendments” when it republished the piece last week.
As part of its response TFF said it was unfair for Cass to have ignored over £290,000 of grants in its charitable expenditure figure and that “their claim as to only 11 per cent spend was deliberately and highly misleading.
”In December the Charity Commission confirmed that it was assessing complaints against TFF.Today a Commission spokeswoman said: “I can confirm that the Commission has an ongoing case regarding complaints made against the True and Fair Foundation. We are assessing the complaints to determine what, if any, regulatory action needs to be taken.”
