Blogs/Vlogs

Charity Commission exercises its powers

30 January 2019

The charity commission issued a report today showing it has used new powers 137 times since they were introduced in the Charities Act 2016.

The commission has disqualified 21 individuals and suspended 7 others from trusteeship, and removed 12 individuals during an inquiry.

6 charities have received Official Warnings from the charity commission, and 14 have been notified of the commission's intention to issue an Official Warming. The RSPCA received one of the Official Warnings in August 2018.

In addition, the commission has required charities to apply charity property in the interest of the charity 17 times.

Safeguarding issues continue to dominate the casework with 552 new safeguarding cases in 2017-18 up from only 163 in 2015-16. 2,114 reports of serious incidents from charities relating to safeguarding incidents or issues were received by the commission between 20 February and 30 September 2018 compared to only 1,203 received in the whole of 2016-17.

Auditors and Independent Examiners made 287 reports of matters of material significance, up from only 54 reports the previous year.

The charity commission has directly protected £33.2m of charitable funds as a result of interventions in the year compared to £81m in 2016-17.

If you have any questions or are concerned about this issue and how it will affect your charity, please contact your local UHY charity adviser.  Alternatively, if you would like to read more charity-focused blogs please click here.

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