William Shawcross, the new Chairman of the Charity Commission took up his two-day a week, £50,000 per year post in October replacing Dame Suzi Leather who had served in the role since 2006. He made his first public speech at the ACEVO annual conference on 29th November when he spoke on the theme of Good Governance and raised a number of issues including the relationship between the Government and Charities.

“Independence is about making decisions only on the basis of the best interests of the charity and its beneficiaries. Not the interests of funders – including government………. Partnerships with government enable many charities to stay in the mainstream of policy and to improve their services. But charities should not become the junior partner in the welfare state; whether or not they provide services funded by government or indeed receive grants from government, they must remain independent and focused on their mission. My personal view is that some charities have become dependent on the state. And I think that most members of the public, when asked, would say a charity is an organisation funded from private donations, not public funds.”

I have been a Trustee of many charities over nearly 30 years, from those with negligible turnover and no interest in receiving public funds nor delivering formal services to one with a turnover of over £7M that receives most of its income from the state to deliver services for people who would otherwise be directly dependent on the state. In that time I have met very few people who truly believe that the state should deliver all ‘public’ services even if it had the capacity to do so and the state is clearly ill-suited for delivering all of the services which we as residents might need throughout our lifetime.  I also challenge the concept implicit in the words of Mr Shawcross that if a service was provided in an alternative way, that charities would not adapt and change to suit these new circumstances, usually pretty rapidly. If Local Government can change and adapt, most charities are as capable of doing so, and in fact that is one of the many strengths of the sector. Charities do fail occasionally but in most cases this reflects the need for a new structure to meet different needs, despite the pain for those involved. 

William is right that many people outside of the charitable sector (and a few within it) believe that charities should be solely funded from private donations but general confusion exists in many sectors and on many matters and that alone is not a reason for a regulator to make pronouncements.

Where I am most at odds with Mr Shawcross is in his understanding of how dependency works. The state is the funder and the charities are being funded,  inevitably there will be some charities that go out of their way to catch the eye of the state, but the idea that the charitable sector is attempting to become an arm of government is risible. Equally telling charities to be more Independent is irrelevant for most charities and very old news to the rest. Rather than addressing his comments to the sector which is inevitably the partner with less power and influence, would it not be more appropriate for this well paid official to remind the Government that it should look after a sector without which the fabric of our society will crumble into dust. He could take the Government to task for imposing funding conditions that prevent charities from serving their core purposes. He could point out that asking a charity to deal with a social need one year and then cutting the service the next is wasteful and damages trust of all but the most thick-skinned public servant, or point out that when one Government tells a group of local charities to merge into a national agency so they can be funded more sustainably and the next asks for a reverse move simply because they want to be seen to make a difference destroys the good parts of any ‘third sector’ or ‘big society’ rhetoric. William, if you want charities to be seen to be Independent of the state that funds a small number of them, perhaps you could lead by example.

I have no idea how suited William Shawcross is to his new role. It was clear that his appointment was not greeted with unanimity by the Public Administration Select Committee which is the Parliamentary group responsible for endorsing such appointments. Three of the seven members were opposed to selecting him although this seemed to be on the grounds of party political bias, rather than due to any problem with his grasp of the charitable sector. However this speech seems to have missed by a mile the real issues facing our sector.

There is also an interesting interview with William in Third Sector magazine. At the end of the interview a few key issues are covered including the paying of Trustees. I support this concept where large charities demand a great deal of time from their Trustees for good reason and I believe that relying solely on wealthy or retired people to take up these posts is simply not good enough for a sector that at its heart deals with people who are very vulnerable. However William appears to disagree with my view. On the other hand for a man of 66 (a year after normal retirement age) to take up a role as Chair of a board focused on charitable activity, he seems happy enough to take the Government shilling at a similar rate as the Prime Minister so perhaps he will change his mind when the irony of that position finally dawns on him.