The Commission claims it is one of the oldest regulators in continuous existence in the world. You would think that with all those years of practice they would be able to get it right by now.
Charity is the voluntary giving of help and support to those in need, it is part of human nature and is present in all cultures. In more modern times this help and support translates to money. It is widely recognised that charity fills gaps where gov can’t (or won’t) fund the support and help that is needed. People recognise need and gaps in provision and it is in our human nature to want to help with what we have at our disposal, which in wealthy countries like ours, is money. Wherever there is money there is crime, this was recognised historically when theft and misuse of charity money and charitable status was common. A regulatory body was established to prevent this. This is the forerunner of the Commission today.
The single most important role of the Commission and the real and only reason for its existence is to protect our money and our donations. The Commission are there to ensure that our money goes to the causes we give it for and that it is not misappropriated, used differently to our wishes or stolen. This can be dressed up with flowery words about protecting and nurturing relationships between the public and charities, about safeguarding a covenant between the public and charities but it basically comes down to they are there to protect our money.
The Commission fails miserably, regardless of all the regulations and their regulatory power they do not protect our money. They do not even consider that protecting our money is their primary role.
The Commission is charged by Parliament with 5 statutory objectives. As always with such objectives they sound impressive but what all the objectives come down to is protecting the public's money. Not one of these objectives can be achieved if the Commission do not understand that protecting our money is what underpins the objectives and is their primary role. The Commission's statutory functions are the same.
The problem lies in their statutory duties and how the Commission, without any oversight, applies them when performing their functions.
The phrase ‘so far is reasonably practicable’ appears.
Unfortunately what is reasonably practicable is determined by the Commission without oversight.
There is also the duty of having regard to the need to use our resources in the most efficient, effective and economic way …………...also determined by the Commission without oversight.
The Commission states that the Charities Act requires them to ensure their regulatory engagement is proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted. Again all of these are determined by the Commission.
So…………………... keep in mind that the Commission works for Parliament and the public - not the charities, and that their real and only job is to protect our money from fraud, misappropriation, misuse and theft.
….in the Commissions view meeting these requirements during an engagement is:
- asking a charity if its done anything wrong and believing them if they say no
- Demanding real provable evidence from complainants in order for their complaints to be even considered whilst accepting misinformation and fabricated unchecked evidence from a charity.
- Accepting false information from charities aimed at personally discrediting complainants as fact without any evidence.
- Accepting information and evidence from charities as factual and true without checking validity.
- Ignoring complaints they can’t be bothered reading, because they have a lot of information to look at.
- Pass all complaints to and discuss all evidence provided by complainants with the charity and give the charity time to prepare their answers and rebut any accusations.
- Automatically consider the response and any evidence provided by a charity to be true without checking and giving no right of rebuttal to the complainant before closing the investigation.
- Consistently not reporting fraud and crime, perpetrated by dishonest individuals managing charities, to the relevant authorities.
- Systematic refusal of FOI requests stating exemptions. The exemptions are deliberately misapplied in order to prevent oversight or scrutiny of the Commissions work and the evidence it has used to form its judgements.
- Systematic refusal of SAR’s stating misapplied exemptions to prevent members of the public knowing what information a charity may have given to the Commission about them, what information the Commission has then stored about them and how that information has been used. Deliberately preventing the public challenging false information.
The list goes on, there is no oversight the Commission does what it wants. If a complainant is unhappy with the Commissions decision then they can complain …… to the Commission!
The person investigating will ask the officers involved if they have done their job, they will say yes and the complainant will get a letter saying the Commission did a good job and your complaint is not upheld.
A further tier 2 complaint can be submitted ……. to the Commission...
..further outlining your concerns. Another complaints investigator will ask the same questions of the officers involved and maybe ask for a bit more detail. That investigator will also determine that everything is correct and write a letter to inform you again that the Commission has done a good job and your complaint has not been upheld.
The voracity of the actual decision on the evidence and case is never checked, there is no process internally - or externally - to check if the evidence has been looked at correctly and professionally - it only checks if the correct procedures have been followed. As such the Commission and other relevant authorities will never be able to undo wrong decisions on fraud, abuse and other serious legal issues.
SARs and FOI’s follow the same principle - unless they are about data collected and easily accessible to the Commission they will be refused. You can complain to the Commission, but they will always support the original decision….. of the Commission The next stage is ICO but it takes months for complaints to be considered, which the Commission are well aware of.
The Commission's actions at all times are designed to obstruct and prevent the public from realising what they actually do.
The Commission have lost sight of their responsibilities.
