Speech

Paula Sussex presentation to the Association of Chairs

Paula Sussex, extracts of presentation to Association of Chairs.

From:
The Charity Commission and Paula Sussex
Published
20 July 2016

This speech was withdrawn on

This document is no longer current.

Delivered on:
(Speaker's notes, may differ from delivered version)
Paula Sussex

Overview of the role of the Commission, our regulatory approach, the ‘state of trusteeship’.

Like most of you we operate on a tight budget.

There are 165,334 charities on the Register.

Whether we register a charity is essentially a legal test. Around 8,000 applications this year, registered 5,000 of them.

Consulting later this year on our funding – looking at various options. Our budget is half what it was a few years ago, and we have introduced a lot of digital efficiency this year, but sooner or later we’ll reach the limit of that efficiency drive.

Legal and compliance powers:

Levels of use of powers remain broadly similar to last year - 1,073 (2014-15: 1,062).

We opened 1,327 (2014-15: 1,182) operational compliance cases and closed 1,309 (2014-15: 1,257); and published 25 case reports (2014-15: 29) to help trustees learn from them.

We issued 14 notices of our intention to remove people as trustees (2014-15: 4) and removed nine of them due to their poor conduct, (2014-15: 4), so that they are now permanently disqualified from acting in charities.

Permissions/ enabling work is key to what we do.

Our Regulatory Approach

  • promoting compliance by charity trustees with their legal obligations, holding charities accountable, and upholding the definition of charity under charity law

  • not tolerating the misuse of any charity or its funds for unlawful or improper purposes; alert to fraud, terrorist abuse and lack of safeguarding of vulnerable beneficiaries

  • we promote the effective use of charitable resources through permissions, advice and guidance so that trustees understand what they need to do to run their charity effectively

Trust – lowest level since records began in 2005.

CC3 flagship guidance

  • new trustees on registration tick to say they have read it
  • we recommend charity template eligibility forms include it
  • reviewed, consulted on, updated in 2015
  • informs trustees of the 6 essential legal duties on how to run a charity effectively and protect from harm

Charity law generally protects trustees who have acted honestly and reasonably.

When we talk about ‘must’ – legal obligations, and ‘should’ – our expectations of good practice.

Published 20 July 2016

Related content