The Regulator for Charities in England and Wales
One of the real, and unexpected, joys both on a personal and professional level since I joined the Charity Commission sixteen months ago have been the many conversations I have had with representatives of different faiths.
These discussions have given me a heightened sense of my own responsibility as a person of faith to engage in dialogue and relationship with other believers; to build a sense of the diverse communities which make up each faith; and to foster a perspective of mutual respect and harmony between faiths. Ibelieve that these ambitions are also yours; expressed in the ecumenical approach of the Churches Main Committee. And I thank you very much for asking me to be here today; it is a great privilege and I shall learn much.
The Charity Commissioners were first appointed in 1853 in order to support and protect charities. The modern Charity Commission with its responsibility for recognising, through registration, charities in England and Wales dates back only to the 1960s. Quite a recent institution compared to the faiths represented here today. We are the regulator for an important and growing part of what we now call civil society: that which sits between the public and private. Our regulatory reach covers 190,000 organisations, 600,000 employees and nearly one million trustees. It covers charities as diverse as women’s refuges, play groups, donkey sanctuaries, the National Trust, human rights organisations, the Red Cross, art galleries and theatres, schools and hospitals. And of course religious organisations by which I mean organisations whose function is to advance religion as well as organisations whose main inspiration is religious.
Religion is one of the very foundations of charitable activity. Religion is often the motivating factor behind voluntary endeavour. The Commission therefore has a hugely important role to play in supporting religious charities and it is something that I have put much emphasis upon since I joined the Commission and I will be touching on some of the exciting developments in what I say today.
You have asked me to talk on the advancement of religion and the public benefit requirement. There’s no doubt that the timing of my address to you is propitious. Last week, the Commission’s Board signed off the summary version of the overarching public benefit guidance we will publish in the New Year. At the same time, we will start consulting on what we’re calling ‘sub-sectoral’ guidance on public benefit for those charities which have had the presumption that they automatically provide public benefit removed, as well as for those charities charging fees. As you know, religious charities have had the presumption of public benefit removed, so there will be dedicated draft guidance for religious organisations published for consultation in the first few months of next year. That supplementary guidance will not introduce any new, or special, principles of public benefit. It will give guidance on the meaning of the main principles of public benefit as well as what it means for trustees of charities with religious purposes to ensure that they are bringing public benefit. I hope you will all be able to have a look at that draft guidance and provide us with your views. Although I don’t want to pre-empt that sub-sector consultation I do want to reassure you on a number of fronts and then highlight some of the key issues.
Many of you, I know, are concerned about what the public benefit requirement will mean for your organisations. I suspect that at least some of your concern may have been generated by misunderstanding. When we published the first version of our overarching guidance this summer, there was a spate of editorials and letters in some parts of the religious press which made alarming predictions about the public benefit requirement.
No doubt we could have expressed ourselves with even more clarity, for to read these, you might have understood that the default sanction for failing promptly to meet the requirement was the immediate withdrawal of an organisations’ charitable status. Some commentators went even further, asserting that the removal of religious organisations’ status as charities was, in fact, the real reason behind the public benefit requirement. That the Commission was somehow doing the bidding of political masters intent that there should be a back door secularisation of the register of charities. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is not only religious charities which have been stirred up by unhelpful media speculation. I suppose we at the Commission could almost have taken some comfort from the fact that some of those representing independent fee-charging schools were making exactly the same claims on their behalf. Our supposed oppression of charities seemed to be nothing if not even handed! Needless to say, we have tried to put the record straight wherever we can and as I hope to do with you today.
The sheer volume of anxious responses to our summer consultation from religious charities concerned me. That so many organisations, doing such valuable work in our communities, are genuinely afraid that the charitable status they value so much is vulnerable is a pity indeed. It is also a sad waste of energy that could be going into precisely the kind of activities which, when made public, will demonstrate triumphantly why faith-influenced charities are amongst the oldest, most numerous and most valuable on the register.
Allow me to deal with these concerns in turn. In doing so, I hope to both put your minds at rest and provide some food for thought - before our lunch!
Firstly, let me state categorically that advancing religion is, and continues to be, a recognised charitable purpose, one of thirteen identified and listed by Parliament in the new Act. Despite this, I know – because you have told us – that some charities fear they will lose charitable status because they will not be deemed to fit with modern social conditions. Again, let me state categorically this is a groundless fear. Even if we had the desire to meddle with them, which I assure you we don’t, specific religious beliefs and practices remain outside the Commission’s consideration of public benefit.
What we must do is respect the diversity of religious belief and practice, a diversity recognised and expressed by this Committee. The advancement of religion includes many different faiths, including for example Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. The Act does not define religion as such, but reflects the existing law which allows theistic, non-theistic and polytheistic faiths to be regarded as religions in charity law. As you can see this requires a very open approach. One of the issues in the sub-sector guidance consultation we will therefore be the meaning of religion. And this is something we have already held very useful consultation discussions with people from a wide variety of religious and non-religious belief groups.
One of the key issues in public benefit is the public nature of beliefs and practices. Like all charities, those which advance religion must benefit the public, or a sufficient section of the public. There are many ways this can be done, such as offering opportunities for religious worship or contemplation, providing religious instruction and education, or social outreach into communities – both at home and abroad.
There are many ways in which charities can deliver public benefit. What the public benefit requirement asks is that trustees simply explain how their organisation brings public benefit and who benefits. Though I should stress that we most certainly won’t be requiring organisations to do more than say in general terms who their beneficiaries are.
So please be assured there will be no political correctness audit by the Commission. We have no right, reason or desire to interfere with either the forms of worship, or the teachings or ideas they further unless – unsurprisingly - they are against the law. Advocating racial or religious hatred for instance is not acceptable.
I have been clear that toleration is very important. Charity law recognises that some religious beliefs may preach against practices or behaviours which others in society believe are acceptable or positive. That’s one of the reasons we have such a diverse register of charities – where organisations with views as varied as the RSPCA and the Association for Medical Research, the Richard Dawkins Foundation and Hindu temples rub shoulders. The diversity of the register epitomises the toleration implicit in charity law.
Let me say more about this important key principle of public benefit: that it should; ‘benefit the public or a sufficient section of the public.’ Again, this is something which has caused some concern. It doesn’t mean benefiting huge percentages of any given population but it does mean that, depending on the charity’s purposes and its resources, everyone who could benefit has the opportunity to do so – whether or not they choose to avail themselves of that opportunity. However, it doesn’t mean that charities cannot restrict their services to certain groups; Jewish care homes can continue to cater for people of the Jewish faith.
I think that another concern is that religious charities are being picked on. Singled out for rather discriminatory treatment. Again, this is a misunderstanding. Religious charities are in the same boat as every other type of charity on the register. In removing the presumption of public benefit from charities advancing religion, education, or relieving poverty, the Charities Act simply intended to build a level playing field where every charity must show that it is for the public benefit.
In return for charitable status religious charities will have to do what other charities do – no less, but also nothing more. Religious charities will have to describe the impact of their beliefs, doctrines and practices and be able to show that they are beneficial and available to the wider community. What will not happen is any attempt to measure or quantify those benefits religious charities bring which are, after all, intangible.
We will not, I guarantee, set the bar any higher for religious charities than for others. We will not do any more or less than for any other type of charity – which is to ensure they meet the requirements of accountability, fulfil the responsibilities of trustees and account for the public benefit they provide.
Leaving aside ideological concerns, which I hope I have gone some way to relieving today, another potential woe is the additional regulatory burden which meeting the public benefit requirement will add to the lot of already hard-pressed charities. I fully appreciate this concern. The drive to accountability and transparency, while vital to maintaining public trust and confidence, can place additional administrative burdens on charities when they have other pressing uses for that resource.
Which is why we want trustees to show how their charity meets the public benefit requirement using existing reporting frameworks, namely the Trustees’ Annual Report.
In line with our proportionate approach to risk and reporting, the level of detail we want to see will depend on a charity’s income. Because public benefit is such a crucial component of charitable status, we are setting the bar for more detailed public benefit reporting at £500,000.
Smaller charities with incomes under this threshold will only have to include a brief summary of the activities they undertake to provide public benefit. Of course, there’s nothing to stop trustees providing fuller statements if they want to and we hope that many will take up the opportunity to explain further – but it’s not compulsory.
Larger charities, those over the £500,000 threshold, must provide a fuller explanation, as you’d expect given their larger resources and, generally, wider range of activities. We want trustees of these organisations to look at their significant areas of work and explain their aims and strategies to deliver this work, and what’s been achieved.
We expect charities over £500,000 to provide us with more detail than those under this threshold, but it’s up to them to decide how much they should give. I very much hope you see this as opportunity to give an account, relate the impact and extent of your public benefit.
I hope you agree that using the Trustees’ Annual Report to demonstrate your public benefit is the most resource effective way of meeting the requirement. The thinking behind this is part of our commitment to reducing the administrative burden we place on charities, and the work we are doing across the board to ensure that as regulator we are doing everything we can to support charities in doing their vital work, not to damage or undermine them.
The scope of the public benefit requirement encompasses all charities. Churches and other religious organisations are often accused, quite wrongly in my view and experience, of being insular and inward looking. I hope very much you seize on the public benefit requirement as a highly visible way of demonstrating that your charities are anything but.
If the best charities set the bar for public benefit reporting and the rest raise their game accordingly, then demonstrating public benefit will become an exercise in explaining impact in the most tangible sense. As our work on public benefit reporting develops the understanding both of the charities and of the Commission will grow and, I hope will be an interesting and rewarding experience for all of us.
I hope that, as I’ve spoken, your thinking about meeting the public benefit requirement has come full circle. Where there was concern and anxiety I hope I have instead been able to whet your appetite for making the most of this opportunity to tell your incredibly valuable and worthwhile story.
We are not in the business of undermining religious charities. To do so would be to undermine one of the very foundations of charitable activity. Religion is so often the motivating factor behind voluntary endeavour – it is certainly one of the oldest. There are at least 25,000 charities on the register which specify faith in their objects – no regulator in their right mind would do anything other than cherish and support such a number of charities driven by their belief to do good.
Before I touch on the other developments which are taking place in our work with faith charities let me mention a couple of issues which have been raised with us and are causing some anxiety. Firstly, the issue of detriment or harm. Some people are concerned that certain religious beliefs, practices or attitudes might be regarded as detriment or harm because they are discriminatory, unpopular or out of step with current public attitudes. The question for us as the regulator is what should count as a sufficiently big detriment that we should take it into account? I am mindful that churches are voluntary organisations and provided that they are behaving as such (which might mean not for instance, threatening people or preventing anyone from leaving) we have said that we have no business trying to change the tenets of faith. But we clearly cannot tolerate law breaking or the promotion, or incitement of unlawful discrimination against people. So, there is a balance to be struck and I’d be interested to hear where you would have us draw the line.
Secondly, whether and where there should be any limits on proselytising? The possibility for proselytising seems to me to be part of a free society, an expression of a human right and almost by definition what’ advancing religion’ might mean. But this becomes complicated in the international sphere where advancing a particular religion might be against the law of that country. Charity law does not allow campaigning for changes in the law of this or any other country. Again, I would be grateful for your views.
I said at the beginning that I would mention some of the other developments in our work with faith charities. In April this year, following a two year project consulting hundreds of faith organisations up and down the country to find out what they wanted from us, the Commission board agreed to establish a Faith and Social Cohesion unit within the Commission to work with and support the faith sector:
Working initially with Muslim organisations, the unit is already making good, quiet progress working to support current initiatives including the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB). We will also be strengthening our own ecumenical work through the establishment of an Advisory Group on Faith, which much like this group will have representation from all the main faiths. I see the role of this Advisory Group as both advising us about faith matters and acting as knowledge pool and focus group on issues affecting faith charities. The volume of those from religious charities who have volunteered to be part of this group bodes well for further developing the Commission’s understanding of organisations driven by faith.
Our faiths teach us that we have a responsibility to tackle the social ills we see around us, either as people who contribute to their causes, as legislators capable of providing some redress, or as citizens charged with political or other influence effective enough to secure redress. And for this we need imagination, or vision. Having this, and maintaining it in the current climate is both more difficult and more important as we witness our society becoming more, not less, divided by race and religion.
But I do think that under what might been termed a ‘politics of equal dignity and respect’ we can as people of faith renew our determination to show the value of religion. Given the current climate of religious tension in the world and in our own society, I can understand why a radical secularism seems attractive. But we would lose so much if, to foster social cohesion, we undermined precisely that which gives individuals and communities a strong sense of their worth and purpose: namely religious identity. And this brings me back to public benefit. For by demonstrating public benefit openly, confidently, I believe that religious charities can help show the relevance and continued importance of faith in the modern world. It can help demonstrate that modernity need not be a process of secularisation but that the atomised, dislocated culture which undoubtedly is modernity needs faith even more.
I am confident that the public benefit requirement is actually a hugely important opportunity. Advancing religion has public value, in much the same way as say advancing the arts has. It can’t be measured or counted, it isn’t susceptible to a performance audit, and not everyone wishes to take part in it, but its energy is transformational. It helps build positive people and communities. And society needs an invitation to the spiritual, the possibility of answering existential questions and the imperative to love through action if it is to survive at all. It’ll also mean that rather than just having the vague claims for what religion ‘is and does’ we will have examinable accounts of what individual organisations of Hindus and Muslims, and Buddhists, and Jews and Christians and Bath’ists and humanists and Sikhs are doing for public benefit. And that can be no bad thing.
Thank you.