and how individuals within charities can get away with crime
The Charity Commission is charged by us with the regulation of Charity Law and as a gov and public organisation the Charity Commission also has clear and direct responsibility for ensuring that UK Laws are also upheld by Charities.
However the Commission does not believe or consider that to be their job, they do not report crime or criminals to the appropriate authorities rather they support the individuals involved and downgrade serious crime to misdemeanours.
With no review or oversight of such decisions the Commission is able to forgive crime and support ‘charities’ to cover it up. Crimes and the perpetrators of those crimes that the public would want to be prosecuted and that the law says should be prosecuted. Crimes that involve the publics hard earned money.
The Commission appears to operate under the naïve illusion that all charities are set up for good and that the people who manage charities are intrinsically good people. There is absolutely no recognition from the Commission that this may not be the case and that the badge of charity can be and is easily abused. That many charities are businesses and were set up to be businesses where founders and supporters earn their living on high wages whilst giving minimum funds to their stated good causes. This information will be hidden by their amazing annual reports (if they bother to file one) and their charity accounts where their wages will be recorded as charitable giving.
In reality a charity doesn’t have to file a report or accounts for years before the Commission gets round to asking them to. If reports are filed criminals know that all the information in a report and accounts can be untrue or fake, nobody from the Commission checks. Most issues or concerns regarding accounts are actually reported to the Commission by the independent examiner, if a charity hires an independent examiner that will turn a blind eye then this would not be a problem. The badge of charity makes an easy and respectable front for crime.
The Commission does not seem to understand that criminals, con artists and thieves lie and that if confronted they will lie and lie and lie and fabricate information. The Commission accepts the lies as truth and the fabricated evidence as real. It makes their job easier.
It is the Commission's lack of regulation and enforcement that enables this situation. If the Commission on occasion actually discovers and determines that there has been some real criminal wrongdoing then it will immediately downgrade these offences to misdemeanours. Activities that are criminal offences warranting prosecution in any other walk of life are written off by the Commission as little mistakes and the perpetrators allowed to go unpunished, unless you count being told not to be a trustee for a few years as a punishment.
It is hard to determine whether the Commission's response to charity crime is driven by naivety, or incompetence, the desire to make their job easier or an arrogant belief that the public are stupid. When challenged about any of their actions they use their statutory objectives as a response such as increasing public confidence in charities. To the Commission this means don’t let the public know that some charities are bad don’t let them know that some people running some charities are dishonest criminals. They consider the public stupid and unable to discern or understand that some does not make all and that enforcement actually shows that the Commission are doing their job of regulation.
Regulation and real enforcement makes it harder for criminals to operate under the cover of charity. Cover ups and the protection of criminals just invites them in.
Charity Sanity has real concerns that the Commission’s approach is in part about making their job easier while fooling the public into believing they do their job. Good charities and the good people that run them try hard to get it right but mistakes can happen. A good charity will be honest with the Commission about its failings and mistakes, usually minor. The Commission can randomly choose any charity admitting to a mistake to bring the full weight of its regulatory powers into play. The mistakes may be minor but the regulation is heavy handed and unnecessary and usually public. This activity is an arrogant attempt to fool the public into believing the Commission are a real regulatory body who are strong on regulation and take to task charities when they do not follow regulation. A smokescreen to cover up real crime by real criminals who the Commission allows to get away with it.
The Commission do not work for the public, they do not regulate charities but they do protect criminals.
