Transactions restricted after grant-making charity fails to implement improvements
Inquiry opened into Resham Helping Hand following concern about safeguarding of funds
The Charity Commission has opened an inquiry into Resham Helping Hand (1120198), due to concerns that there has been misconduct and/or mismanagement at the grant-making charity. The charity’s purposes include providing overseas aid and humanitarian relief in Pakistan. The inquiry opened on 7 January 2020.
The Commission met with the trustees in response to information provided within the charity’s annual return, ultimately issuing an action plan to address concerns it had identified around due diligence and monitoring the end use of charitable funds.
The Commission has since revisited the charity and has continued concerns relating to the trustees’:
- failure to conduct due diligence checks before parting with charitable funds, despite the advice and guidance of the Commission.
- monitoring of the end use of funds, as trustees were unable to demonstrate how the charitable funds would be used.
- application of charitable income in furtherance of the charity’s objects.
The Commission has therefore opened an inquiry to look into these regulatory concerns and exercised its power to temporarily restrict the charity’s transactions in order to protect charitable funds.
It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.
Ends.
Notes to Editors
- The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work see the about us page on GOV.UK.
- Section 76(3)(f) of the Charities Act 2011 gives the Commission power to restrict transactions into which the trustees may enter into, without prior written approval of the Commission. In this case the inquiry has restricted overseas transfers or payments, payments to trustees or related parties and cash withdrawals.
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