Regulator to ‘be more proactive in anticipating wrongdoing’

The Charity Commission has pledged to ramp up its work in “anticipating wrongdoing” among charities, using its intelligence gathering and data analysis.

The regulator has made the commitment in its business plan for the year.

“Through our activity, we will be more proactive in anticipating wrongdoing, dealing with it speedily where we find it,” the Commission states.

“We will continue to deploy our increasingly sophisticated approach to intelligence gathering and data analysis, improving how we use data and intelligence to inform our work, helping us to identify and address the issues and risks that emerge.”

Gathering additional details about charities in the overhauled set of Annual Return questions is among ways this pledge will be supported.

The Commission has also pledged to “explore ways to explain out casework in a way that is meaningful to the public and useful to trustees” and raise awareness of information available to the public on its register.

The pledge is part of four priorities outlined by the Commission for 2023/24. These are to:

• regulate effectively, being clear about our role and our decision-making
• strengthen our support and interventions to ensure charities are run well
• improve how we use our voice, data and intelligence to help charity deliver impact
• invest in our people and our systems so that we continue to be an expert

This includes a pledge that when it must respond to “wrongdoing and harm” it will “better support trustees in running their charities”.

“We know that no matter how successful the charitable endeavour, the best plans can go astray,” states the Commission.

“In our interventions, we will be proportionate – helping trustees to respond when problems occur, while tackling intentional wrongdoing robustly.”

Later this year the Commission will publish its five-year strategy from 2024 to set out its vision for the organisation “which is fair, balanced and independent in the way it delivers its regulation”.

This latest business plan for 2023 is “as we come to the end of our current strategy”, which has been focused on “getting out house in order”, managing backlogs and understanding its case work “while maturing into a better, more professional organisation” it says.

The plan adds that during 2023 the Commission “will speak out on the issues that matter”.

The Charity Commission’s previous chair, the former Conservative coalition government minister Baroness Stowell, was criticised by the sector for a raft of comments seen as compromising the Commission’s independence, including her criticism of “lefty lawyers”.