The Charity Commission soft launched a funding consultation at its public meeting on Monday, and was met with outrage from delegates. Hugh Radojev says it is going to be a hard sell to both the sector and the public.
Monday’s public meeting of the Charity Commission in Southampton was billed as an update for local Hampshire charities on the ongoing digitalisation of the Commission, as well as its work on fundraising guidance for trustees.
But right from the off, it became clear that there was another motive.
Both William Shawcross, chair of the Charity Commission (pictured) and Paula Sussex, chief executive of the Charity Commission, returned to one point again and again: the regulator has fallen on hard times.
In a nutshell, the regulator’s job is becoming increasingly diverse and complex and yet, in the last eight years, its budget has been repeatedly slashed, while its staff numbers have halved.
In the public meeting’s last act of the day Jane Hobson, head of policy at the Commission, effectively made a naked pitch to the gathered local charity representatives. How would they feel about contributing money to the funding of the regulator in the future?
The answer, certainly in the room at least, was a resounding ‘no’.
Hobson’s slide showed a number of projected figures and permutations that each added up to around £23m a year of funding for the Charity Commission. But they were met with howls of outrage and plenty of criticism from the floor.
In the days since, the Charity Commission has said that many of the projections soft-balled at the public meeting in Southampton likely won’t wind up in the final consultation document. Regardless, it is clear that the Charity Commission faces an uphill battle to get the sector to agree to this.
While large charities might groan at the prospect of having to spend yet more money to fund regulation, it is likely that most would eventually agree to fund the Charity Commission, should it come to that.
The bigger problem for the Commission is certainly going to come from small and medium charities. For local organisations, struggling to survive, the prospect of having to pay any annual fee - no matter how seemingly small - will seem astronomical. And what will small and medium-sized organisations be paying for?
If the atmosphere in the room on Monday was anything to go by, many smaller charities don’t feel particularly well represented by the Charity Commission, or indeed any regulator, at the present time.
With public trust and confidence in the sector already badly shaken by the events of last summer and the upheaval around fundraising regulation, what effect might changes to the way the Commission is funded further shake confidence?
Many in the public would surely lose trust in the Charity Commission’s independence, should it be funded by the very organisations it is supposed to hold to account.
William Shawcross has effectively said that he wants this to be his legacy as chair of the Charity Commission. What he is proposing is nothing less than a revolution.
Whether he is remembered fondly or not will hinge very much on what happens when the consultation opens sometime in the spring.
