4 July 2019
The Charity Commission published its 84-page Annual Report last week, full of interesting information regarding their work. However, it was the Oxfam scandal that dominated the headlines in the newspapers the following day.
The Times focused on the fact that the number of serious incidents reported by whistleblowers increased from 101 in 2017 to 185 last year, of which almost half involved abuse or exploitation. They suggest this increased reporting is a direct response to the publicity involved with the Oxfam scandal in Haiti which came to light in early 2018.
For several years, the Charity Commission has encouraged Trustees and Auditors to make more serious incident reports. It would appear that as a result of Oxfam and other scandals, the landscape changed in 2018, with reports from charities increasing by a third to 3,895, and reports by auditors doubling to 662.
Despite this, there are still worries that the requirements on Trustees and Auditors to report serious incidents are not fully understood, and in some cases such incidents are watered down by the executive teams and not reported to Trustees.
The Charity Commission’s workload has significantly increased in the last year as a result of their work on serious incidents. Total expenditure increased from £20m to £25m in 2018.
The Annual Report highlights the Strategic priorities for the Charity Commission for the next five years:
- Holding charities to account, to behave with integrity and use resources responsibly
- Helping charities to detect, deter and prevent wrongdoing and harm
- Building public confidence in charities
- Helping charities make a real difference, by increased professionalism
- Keeping charities relevant to today’s world
We would encourage all trustees and officers to read through the Annual Report to make sure you are well prepared for future changes in the Regulatory regime. In addition, it is important all Trustees are aware of what constitutes a serious incident that requires reporting.
We provide a link to the annual report below:
If you would like to discuss this, or any aspect of your charity, please contact me or one of our Charity and Not-for-Profit Sector team.
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