Report calls for campaign to promote trusteeship and a register of board vacancies

The report, commissioned by the Charity Commission and the Office for Civil Society, says there are fewer trustees than thought and most are male, retired and well-off

A report revealing that the majority of trustees are male, retired and well-off has called for a national campaign to promote trusteeship and a national register of trustee vacancies.

The report, Taken on Trust: The Awareness and Effectiveness of Charity Trustees in England and Wales, was commissioned by the Charity Commission and the Office for Civil Society, and is based on a survey of about 3,500 trustees carried out by Cass Business School and the Cranfield Trust in January.

The report says that there are 150,000 fewer trustees in England and Wales than previously believed. The commission register records about 950,000 trustee roles, of which 100,000 are identified as being held by someone who holds another role, which suggests there are about 850,000 trustees. But the report concludes that the total number of people serving as trustees is closer to 700,000.

Researchers found that 64 per cent of trustees and 71 per cent of chairs are male, and that 75 per cent of trustees have a household income above the national average.

The most common average age of a trustee board is between 55 and 64, and slightly more than half of trustees – 51 per cent – are retired. Among charities with annual incomes of less than £10,000, the average age of trustee boards increases to between 65 and 74.

More than four out of five (82 per cent) of trustees said they understood their general legal obligations as trustees, but in charities with incomes of less than £10,000 a year, a quarter of trustees said they did not know they had a collective responsibility for all the decisions taken by the board, whether or not they personally contributed to the decision in question.

The areas where most charities reported a lack of skills on their boards were legal, digital, fundraising, marketing and campaigning.

“There is some concern expressed regarding their role and ability in the prevention of fraud and mitigation against external cyber-attack,” the report says.

“These factors increase as the size of the charity reduces; one in five trustees in the smallest charities lack confidence in their competence in these respects.”

A second report published by the commission today, based on research by Cranfield and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, says that trustees do not take up the support offered to them and the market for this help is not functioning well.

In its recommendations, the main report calls for voluntary sector umbrella bodies, supported by the government and the Charity Commission, to establish a campaign to promote the value of trusteeship to public life, beneficiaries and trustees themselves, and promote greater diversity within charity trustee boards.

It says the government “should play its part in resourcing such a campaign” and it should be match funded by the charity sector and the private sector.

The vast majority of trustees (71 per cent) said they had been recruited through an informal process, the report says.

In response to the finding, the report says: “A national register and regional registers of trustee vacancies should be established and publicised widely.”

Helen Stephenson, the chief executive of the commission, said it was heartening that the research showed trustees were positive about the role.

“But there is no room for complacency about the state of trusteeship,” she said.

“Trustees do not reflect the communities charities serve. Charities are therefore at risk of missing out on the widest range of skills, experience and perspective at board level.”

She warned that uniformity at board level risked creating a culture of group-think, where decisions were never challenged, and said she hoped the findings would be a catalyst for change.

Source link

Charity Finance Group calls for joint working party on VAT post-Brexit

In its submission to the Chancellor before the autumn Budget, the group says government and charities could work together to bring in a rebate scheme

The Charity Finance Group has called for a joint government and charity sector working party to decide how the VAT system should operate after Brexit.

In a submission to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, before the autumn Budget, which will take place on 22 November, the CFG says there are some “significant opportunities” for charities from Brexit, in particular in charity tax, and that the government should “lay the foundation for a stronger charity sector”.

Irrevocable VAT costs the charity sector approximately £1.5bn a year, which is equivalent to £9,204 for every charity in the UK, the submission says.

The European Union currently sets rules on VAT zero rates, but the CFG’s letter says that on departing the EU the government could help charities by phasing in a rebate scheme to allow VAT incurred on non-business income to be reclaimed over five years.

This could be supplemented, it says, by converting existing VAT exemptions into zero ratings or “options to tax”, which would allow charities to recover VAT.

These two proposals could save the charity sector 90 per cent of its current VAT tax burden, the submission says.

“The impact of VAT reform would be transformational to the UK charity sector, not only reducing the amount of time spent focused on structuring activities in such a way as to avoid large VAT bills and paying for advice, but also in freeing up hundreds of millions of pounds to be spent on helping advance good causes,” it says.

The CFG is also calling for charities to be exempt from paying insurance premium tax – a tax on general insurance premiums – and for business rate relief for charities to be increased, including a target to create 100 per cent rate relief by the end of this decade.

The CFG’s letter come after a submission last week from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the charity chief executives body Acevo and UK Community Foundations that called on the government to create a successor to the European Social Fund.

The ESF provides European investment for social issues, such as improving skills and training and reducing inactivity among young people and the long-term unemployed. Charities receive approximately £300m a year from the ESF.

The joint submission said that the government had an opportunity to keep the best aspects of the ESF while reducing the scheme’s bureaucracy.

The £1bn in dormant assets the government’s Commission on Dormant Assets recently uncovered should also be used to strengthen the charity sector, the joint submission said, including allowing communities to purchase local amenities and assets, such as village halls or pubs.

The Association of Charitable Foundations has also backed both of the NCVO’s proposals in a separate letter to the Chancellor.

The Charity Tax Group also used its submission ahead of the Budget to call for an improved VAT system, reform of Gift Aid donor benefit rules, reducing tax burdens on the charity sector and making charities’ trading subsidiaries exempt from HM Revenue & Customs’ Making Tax Digital programme.

Source link

Petition calls for Lord Grade to resign from Fundraising Regulator

The Change.org petition had 84 signatures this morning, including Ian MacQuillin of the Rogare think tank

An online petition calling for Lord Michael Grade to resign as chair of the Fundraising Regulator has garnered support from fundraisers after his comments in The Daily Telegraph and on BBC Radio 4 last week.

The petition, started two days ago on the petition website Change.org, had attracted 84 signatures at the time of writing and was started by a user under the name “Proud to be a Fundraiser”.

The petition comes just days after the regulator confirmed that Grade’s term as chair, which was initially an interim appointment up to January 2016, had been extended until the end of 2018.

Grade attracted criticism from sector bodies last week after saying in a national newspaper article that too many charities were “proving to be laggards” and were failing to address public concerns about fundraising.

He then appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme and gave out incorrect information about how the FPS would work, mistakenly saying it would allow people to block contact from all charities at once, rather than specific charities.

He has previously described fundraising as “the Wild West” and fundraisers as “rogues and cowboys”.

The petition calls on Stephen Dunmore, chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator, to “initiate a process to replace Lord Grade immediately and find a chairman who is willing and able to represent donors and not-for-profit organisations responsibly”.

The person who started the petition, who did not wish to be named, told Third Sector they were not expecting to attract thousands of signatures, but it was “a gesture of support” for a strong relationship between the Fundraising Regulator and the fundraising community.

“It’s not just to stir things up for the sake of it,” the person said. “Having the regulator is critically important and every fundraiser I speak to recognises that, but having that trust of the regulator, the donor and charities is the fundamental basis of moving forward.”

The person said Grade’s comments had been “disrespectful and myopic” and risked “forcing a wedge rather than forging a bond” between donors, charities and the regulator.

The text accompanying the petition describes the extension of Grade’s term as unacceptable, describing his comments as “broad sweeping statements to deliberately court controversy and fan the flames of division and discontent”.

It warns that Grade’s comments could result in charities becoming wary of engaging with the regulator, believing they would not get a fair hearing, and donors being put off making donations.

Ian MacQuillin, director of the fundraising think tank Rogare, was among the signatories.

In his comment on the Change.org website explaining why he had signed, he said: “I reluctantly made a call for Lord Grade’s resignation because I believe his public comments, which showed contempt for fundraisers and a lack of knowledge of his own organisation, mean he is bringing regulation of fundraising into disrepute at a time when we need a leader of the regulator who can build bridges and consensus, and regulate with the sector, not at it, to rebuild public trust in fundraising.”

The Fundraising Regulator declined to comment.

Source link