A Heinous Offence?

16 Mar 18

The Charity Commission recently opened a Statutory Inquiry into a charity which they describe as being guilty of a “persistent failure to file its accounts on time.”

It looks like they were late twice in a row. How persistent is that we ask?

While we have been given an insight into why so many charities are late in this way: “It’s just not a priority” we do wonder this…

If the Charity Commission were to receive the greater level of funding that they often remind us they need, might they use it to open more Inquiries?

Could they open a Statutory Inquiry into ALL charities that are late with filing accounts - persistent or not?

That would be a LOT of inquiries - the current number of charities that are guilty is 12,759. YES, that’s right - a whopping 8% of the total registered.

Interestingly, the total - 12,759 - is not included on the Defaulters page. One would never think the number was so high, looking at the list, broken down as it is by geographical area. The Commission fail to do the math and total the list.

That would only add to the horrendous embarrassment they must feel!

However, our mathematician assures us that the total is right.

Now, one might ask, what is the Charity Commission doing to lower the number? [other than opening the odd inquiry to maybe scare the others into compliance]?

A much lower number is the answer: ZERO.

All that talk about charging charities for using the Commission’s services and they haven’t suggested a modest fine for every trustee of every charity that’s late with their accounts - why not?

Say, £50 per trustee per month should concentrate the minds of these wayward trustees, sole bent on doing good with their lives - rather than admin.

More math:

Say an average 4 trustees per charity - 12,759 charities

The monthly additional income would be over £2.5M per MONTH.

That has to be enough to open LOADS of Inquiries!

Other regulators in our world caught on years ago.

Companies House and HMRC are TRUE persistent finers - to name but two.

Companies House impose a fine for their late filings.

HMRC fine people, too - enough said on this one.

The trouble is, the old Charity Commission is not only short of funding right now but they are short of ideas too!

We ask… who are the REAL dummies?

Trinity

#charitycommission #charity #charities