William Shawcross has spoken out too stridently, and too often

04 Aug 2015 Voices

The Charity Commission chair told The Times the RSPCA had been grotesque, criticised Oxfam as political, and implied door-to-door fundraising should be banned. David Ainsworth asks if he should speak with more moderation.

The Charity Commission chair told The Times the RSPCA had been grotesque, criticised Oxfam as political, and implied door-to-door fundraising should be banned. David Ainsworth asks if he should speak with more moderation.

On Saturday, charities made the front page of the national newspapers again. For once, it was not a new scandal driving the news. Instead it was the chair of the Charity Commission.

William Shawcross, who has held the role since 2012, gave an interview to The Times, published on Saturday on the front page, which seems to have angered significant proportions of the sector because it included direct criticism of major charities and of many common fundraising practices.

The key point here is not whether he is right or wrong, but whether this is an effective way to do his job as a regulator. Has the interview allowed his organisation to function better?

Reading the full quotes, it’s obvious that the newspaper has been quite selective. Nonetheless, it appears Shawcross did say the quotes attributed to him, and most appear consistent with previous statements.

Some of the key phrases include:

  • “The RSPCA sometimes seems to have lost sight of its original purposes to promote kindness and to prevent cruelty to animals. They have elected a whole lot of radical trustees.”
  • “[Oxfam] published a tweet about the ‘perfect storm’ which listed all the things they didn’t like about government policy. It looked very political and we chased them up on it and they said they wouldn’t do it again.”
  • “You cannot farm out fundraising to a commercial firm like GoGen acting in the way they did. It’s awful.”
  • “We all thought [the death of Olive Cooke] was horrible. I don’t know whether the charities were guilty or culpable but they were certainly responsible.”
  • “Stories of people being deluged by mailings and harassed by endless telephone calls on behalf of charities are intolerable. Charities must listen to what people want and, more importantly, do not want.”
  • “It would obviously be a matter of huge concern if money collected off the street was being diverted to terrorist-related causes. I’m sure money has been diverted.”

Shawcross was also reported by the newspaper – not in direct quotes – as saying that charities should not be allowed to fundraise door-to-door, and that street fundraising must not be “aggressive”.

These are all obviously Shawcross’s opinions, honestly held, and in many cases supported by the public. But has it helped the Commission and the sector for them to appear on the front page of The Times?

On the plus side, his strong stance might have endeared the Charity Commission to the public – the comments under the article on the newspaper website were broadly supportive.

But on the negative side, it appears to have given the charity sector the impression that Shawcross is partisan and incapable of discretion.

Sector commentators were upset that many of the issues he commented on were outside his remit. At other times his view appeared to be at variance with his organisation’s official position.

There have also been one or two complaints that Shawcross focuses on the donor and the volunteer to the exclusion of the beneficiary, even though the sector exists for the benefit of that last group.

If this was a lone instance of such criticism, one might simply conclude that Shawcross had been stitched up by The Times, looking to make capital out a few injudicious phrases. But Shawcross has form for outspokenness, and this is just the latest instance.

He looks increasingly at odds with the tenor of his organisation. Under Paula Sussex, the Charity Commission has made much of its need to focus on diligence and hard work. Like most public bodies, the regulator is full of scrupulous, hardworking individuals. Like most civil servants those individuals are concerned very much about fairness, consistency and accuracy, and understand the need to work collegiately with those they regulate.

On all of the topics Shawcross discussed, there have already been carefully worded, cautious agreements between charities and the regulator, couching decisions in terms that everyone can find acceptable.

It cannot be helpful to staff interacting with the sector on any delicate issue if the charities involved know the chair could go off-piste later in the day and give his own version of events.

It seems likely that the staff at the regulator will not have thanked William Shawcross for this interview, though they seem likely to have thanked The Times even less.

Since Shawcross’s role is to help the Commission’s staff do their jobs more effectively, it may be that he should rethink the extent to which he airs his views in public.