Warm welcome for Government proposals to help charities to grow and prosper

By Chief Charity Commissioner John Stoker
July 2003

July sees the launch of the government’s responses to proposals for a new framework for charities and the voluntary sector. These reaffirm the vital role charities play in society and the need for a modern forward-thinking regulator to act on behalf of those who give to, and benefit from, charities.

These proposals are a strong reforming package, building on the strengths of the current charity system, while recognising the need to take this sytem forward. They fit well with the way we in the Commission have been developing our approach. I am confident we can work with the proposals, as the Cabinet Office's strategy unit intended, to help charities achieve their potential within a clear and purposeful framework of regulation.

I see five crucial themes in these proposals;

• accountability and information – making both charities and their achievements, and the regulation provided by the Charity Commission, more accountable to the public;
• clarity – the new proposals about charitable status will make it easier and simpler to understand what is charitable in law;
• modernisation – the proposals preserve our ability to adapt what is charitable to the demands and needs of modern society;
• a new fillip for social enterprise – both through the new purpose of promoting community interest and through providing new or better working precedents, which are more realistically attuned to the delivery of social enterprise;
• a sense of proportion in regulation– the bill will enable greater freedom for charities in areas like expenditure of capital, coupled with duties of care on trustees.

The vision of a purposeful regulator, sited independently at arms’ length from the sector and government while working in partnership with both, targeting risk and working to help charities to reach their potential, provides a joined-up picture of the way forward for both charities and ourselves.

We are already spreading information through our website, with over 13 million hits a year, setting accounting and reporting standards and supporting new information initiatives like the Guidestar website. These proposals will set sharply higher expectations and provide means to back them up.

The Commission is already modernising and clarifying the interpretation of charity law. It has recognised as charitable areas such as the promotion of human rights, religious harmony and environmental protection – these proposals will underscore this process of reinterpretation and take it a decisive step further.

More recently we have given guidance to charities exploding some of the myths about their ability to be social entrepreneurs – these proposals will helpfully get rid of a good deal of legal complication and make it possible for charities to pursue community needs more confidently.

We are already trying to target attention and resources where the need and risk are greatest – introducing 'lighter touch' regulation and simplified registration processes for smaller charities – these proposals will reduce the regulatory burden to some extent for all charities, and for small ones especially.

Coinciding with publication of the Commission's annual report, these proposals are a good reforming package, building on the strengths of the current charity system. We are confident we can work with them, in partnership with colleagues in government and the sector, to increase charities’ abilities to set up, grow and prosper.