Umbrella body and former Cabinet Office strategic partner the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (Cemvo) has informed the Charity Commission that it is in the process of winding up and has appointed a liquidator.
However, the Charity Commission is still trying to ascertain whether Cemvo’s remaining charitable assets have been applied for charitable purposes.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said: “Neither the charity nor their liquidators have formally confirmed to the Commission that they have completed the formalities for liquidation and have formally ceased to exist, including confirmation that any remaining charitable assets have been applied for charitable purposes.”
The Charity Commission will contact Cemvo’s liquidator this week for an update on the dissolution.
Cemvo has not filed accounts with the Charity Commission since 2010. Its accounts for that year show it had a healthy income of £1.5m. During that period its biggest source of income was a Cabinet Office strategic partner grant of £269,223.
Commenting on the closure of Cemvo, Kunle Olulode, director of fellow BME charity Voice4Change England, said: “We are very sorry to hear the news that the Cemvo are about to go into liquidation. The loss of any organisation designed to promote race equality makes our world harder. It highlights yet again the pressures on the sector at a time of major financial upheaval, that we ourselves at V4CE know only too well.
"It shows also the necessity for greater collaborations between infrastructure organisations and need for greater flexibility and imagination in how we operate between government and the BME voluntary sector organisations in the we work do.”
GreenSpace to cease trading
Elsewhere, GreenSpace, a national charity that championed the revitalisation of parks and green spaces, has announced it is to close after 12 years. A statement on the charity’s website says devastating budget cuts to local authority funds, combined with reductions in government grants had hit the charity hard.
Its most recent accounts on the Charity Commission’s website for the year ending 31 March 2012 show that its income dropped by over a quarter (27 per cent) from £1.2m to £835,166.
