Ian Allsop is unsure about the appropriateness of the Charity Commission’s key statutory duty.

Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. I could go on. For 700 words or so. Believe me, it would make my job easier (although just stating the words hundreds of times might lead to a loss of those two qualities in my writing). Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence.

There is a point to this. You know how when you say something so many times even the most familiar words start to sound strange and detached of meaning? Trust and confidence. Trust and confidence. Crust and turbulence.

Repetition

Trust and confidence: repeating it countless times doesn’t necessarily embed it. Indeed, it could have the opposite effect.

Charities are a case in point. Most people have probably never questioned whether the charity sector as a whole has a problem with trust and confidence. Until they keep hearing all the time how vital that trust and confidence is, and the attendant debates about the role of the Charity Commission in upholding it.

Then they might start to think there’s an issue. “Maybe I shouldn’t trust charities as much as I did”. “Perhaps I have been over-confident”. And there have certainly been many mentions of ‘t and c’ (as I should surely have abbreviated it long before now) in the sector recently.

Much is made, in polls of trust in institutions, about the high levels of trust that charities enjoy, especially when compared to politicians, estate agents, Radio 1 DJs, and columnists. Although I am not sure how much I trust these polling organisations polling about trust – they never figure on the lists at all.

It is from this platform of high intrinsic trust that the charity regulator undertakes its function in maintaining, and if possible, raising it.

However, at its recent annual public meeting an attendee argued that the Charity Commission’s statutory duty to do this was “barmy” and that the question of the reputation of the charity sector as a whole is nonsense.

He said: “Nobody talks about the reputation of supermarkets, they talk about the reputation of Tesco or Waitrose.” Of course, if he’d used banks as an example, instead of shops, the argument would have been significantly weakened, but it raised an interesting point.

If the Commission’s duty isn’t to raise ‘t and c’ in charity, then what is it? Well, it could regulate and stamp out individual cases of mismanagement and fraud. If these proliferate they might affect the public’s perception of all charities, and have a negative effect on fundraising and every organisation’s ability to fulfil its charitable objectives. So, we are back to the regulator’s duty being to maintain, and raise, public trust and confidence in charities.

Another seasoned observer and critic of the Charity Commission recently pointed out that the issue was actually public trust and confidence in the Commission itself.

The Commission certainly has to be seen to operate properly, but sadly – while it preaches openness and transparency – it recently appeared not to follow its own doctrine and risked confusing ‘confidence’ with ‘confidential’.

This was when, following a request under the Freedom of Information Act, it refused to release details of correspondence it had with the defunct charity Atlantic Bridge, founded by the former defence secretary Liam Fox and run by his chum Adam Werritty.

This is how freedom of information works. It appears to offer a way of achieving transparency but, whenever there is anything juicy that people really want to know about, there is always a cop-out.

Serious questions

In fairness, the Commission used the exemption that disclosure might prejudice the exercise of its functions as a public authority. Releasing the letters could affect its ability to carry out its regulatory functions effectively, due to the possible withdrawal of cooperation by trustees, and by enabling others to conduct themselves in such a way as to evade detection. But that’s small consolation for journalists, political observers and tittle-tattle lovers.

What is clear is that there are serious questions about the validity of the Commission’s ‘t and c-policeman’ role being an explicit statutory duty, and how exactly one measures its success in discharging it.

Ultimately, trust and confidence is important, but there is a risk that fretting unnecessarily and implementing counterproductive solutions to a problem that may not even exist, will in itself erode it.

And by banging on about everyone banging on about it, columns like this don’t help either.