The Charity Commission needs more voices from the charity sector on its board, charity leaders heard yesterday from a board member who stepped down this year.
Claire Dove, chief executive of women’s training charity Blackburne House, was speaking yesterday at the annual conference of charity leaders body Acevo in London.
Dove, who stepped down from the Charity Commission board in June after three years in the role, told the audience that the Charity Commission lacked sector experience on the board, and needed to focus more on empowering charities as well as becoming a “policeman” for the sector.
During the period that Dove served, the Commission board was criticised for becoming too involved in the day-to-day running of the regulator, and for lacking diversity. Dove was the only member of the Commission board with any experience of working on the staff of a charity.
She said she had used her experience to talk about the practical implications of the Commission’s work on the day-to-day activities of charities, but that she felt more individuals with practical experience were needed.
“We need more voices from the charity sector on the board of the Commission,” she said. “I left hoping it would become more diverse. I felt they were missing a trick if they didn’t have more people from the charity sector there.”
However she refused to say that changes were needed to the appointments process, which many have criticised as lacking transparency.
New powers were needed
Dove also spoke about how it had been necessary to increase the powers available to the Commission.
She said that the staff at the Commission were “excellent, absolutely excellent” and had consistently been good at balancing the needs of charity with those of beneficiaries and donors.
“Until you see the cases coming across the desk, you can’t imagine how difficult it is,” she said. “We saw cases of fraud, of children and adults being abused. We had to change our regulation.”
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