IPPF refuses to pay levy to Fundraising Regulator

The International Planned Parenthood Federation says most of its fundraising activity does not happen within the UK

The International Planned Parenthood Federation has refused to pay the levy to fund the Fundraising Regulator.

The IPPF does not appear on the regulator’s register of charities that have paid the voluntary levy, published yesterday, and the charity confirmed to Third Sector today that it had not paid the levy and did not plan to.

All charities that spend more than £100,000 a year on fundraising are eligible to pay a voluntary levy to fund the regulator, but 370 charities of the almost 2,000 eligible organisations contacted by the regulator have not responded to the request or have outright refused to pay.

The IPPF, which campaigns on sexual health and rights, as well as providing advice and care in 172 countries, had an income of £76m in the year to 31 December 2015, and in the same year spent £3.6m on generating voluntary income.

But it said most of that fundraising activity had not happened in the UK.

A spokesman for the IPPF told Third Sector: “In line with options provided to the IPPF, we are not paying the voluntary levy.

“The IPPF receives almost all of its funding from governments, foundations and other institutions.

“Where private individuals’ contributions are received, that’s almost entirely through a separately led team: IPPF Western Hemisphere Region, based in the United States.”

Last week, Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations called for charities that do not pay to be named and shamed, and last week the regulator said it was considering doing so.

The register published yesterday includes the names of all charities that have paid the levy, as well as those charities that are not eligible to pay it but have paid an annual fee of £50 to register with the regulator. It does not include those that are eligible but haven’t yet paid.

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Regulator opens inquiry into humanitarian aid charity

The Charity Commission is looking into the governance of Anaya Aid, which works in Syria, after port officials seized thousands of pounds from it on two separate occasions

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a humanitarian aid charity that works in Syria after thousands of pounds of cash belonging to the organisation was seized by port officials on two separate occasions.

The regulator said it had opened the inquiry into Anaya Aid, which has the object of providing international humanitarian aid during emergency situations, after the charity ignored a warning from the commission that it should not try to take large amounts of cash across borders.

The commission said in a statement today it was told by police in December 2015 that a trustee and a former trustee of the charity had been stopped by UK port officials and about £5,000 of cash belonging to the charity had been seized.

The regulator said that, although the funds were returned, it warned the charity about the risks involved in couriering large sums of charitable funds.

In February, the commission and police issued a warning to charities telling them to avoid cash couriering because of the risks involved.

But the commission said that, in April 2017, it was told by police that the same trustee had again been stopped by UK port officials and cash totalling €23,000 (about £20,300) and £1,500 had been seized.

The regulator said the funds were subject to a cash detention order and were at risk of loss in the event of a successful forfeiture application by police.

The commission said it had also carried out three compliance visits to the charity because of a range of regulatory concerns, “particularly in relation to the charity’s work in Syria and the partners it has used”.

The regulator said: “The trustees have put charity funds at risk of loss on a number of occasions and have failed to comply with the commission’s regulatory advice and guidance.”

It said it had issued an order under section 84 of the Charities Act 2011, directing the trustees “to take specific actions within set timeframes” and issued a further order under section 76(3)(f) of the act, restricting certain transactions that the trustees can enter into without the commission’s prior consent.

Anaya Aid had an income of £418,347 in the year to the end of February 2016, according to its entry on the Charity Commission’s online register, up from £72,052 in the previous year.

The commission said the inquiry would examine such issues as whether the trustees had put the charity’s funds at risk by allowing a trustee of the charity to carry the charity’s funds in cash while travelling in a convoy; the inability of the trustees to adequately account for the end use of the charity’s aid; and trustees’ failure to comply with regulatory advice and guidance from the commission.

The charity did not respond to a request for comment from Third Sector.

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Fundraising Regulator considering ‘naming and shaming’

Sir Stuart Etherington of the NCVO yesterday suggested that the regulator should go public with the names of those charities that had yet to pay its levy

– This story has been updated; please see final paragraph

The Fundraising Regulator is considering publishing a list of charities that have not yet committed to paying the fundraising levy, the watchdog has said.

At a reception to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the regulator yesterday, Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, called for the regulator to “name and shame” the 370 charities that had either refused or ignored its requests to pay the levy.

Charities that spend more than £100,000 a year are eligible to pay the voluntary levy, which funds the Fundraising Regulator.

Etherington said charities should be made to explain why they had not paid the regulator.

A spokesman for the Fundraising Regulator said today that Etherington’s idea was under consideration.

“We have not yet taken a decision on whether to name and shame non-levy payers, but this will remain under consideration by the board,” he said. 

Amanda Bringans, chair of the Institute of Fundraising, tweeted from the reception yesterday that she supported the idea.

But Jay Kennedy, director of policy and research at the Directory of Social Change opposed the idea, saying there were legitimate reasons why charities might not yet have paid up.

He told Third Sector: “Naming and shaming is at best premature and at worst will just damage the sector’s reputation further with more crappy headlines. It could also damage the reputations of any charities that are unfairly castigated in print.”

Kennedy said some charities might not have paid because choosing to do so was a strategic decision for the board that they might not have been able to make yet. He called for the Fundraising Regulator and others to establish the facts and consider their approach.

“My suggestion would be that Sir Stuart, possibly with Vicki Browning, chief executive of the charity leaders body Acevo, as voluntary sector leaders, should schedule telephone conferences with the chief executives or chairs of the relevant charities to persuade them of the case, rather than assuming that the message has been heard, understood and accepted.”

A number of Twitter users suggested that naming and shaming might not be legal.

Reema Mathur, senior associate on the charity and social enterprise team at the law firm Stone King, told Third Sector: “The regulator would be wise to take advice before publishing any such list and be careful how it describes any failure to pay, to make sure it doesn’t fall foul of any regulatory or legal requirements or create any defamatory claims, for example.”

– A spokesman for the regulator originally said it was not considering naming charities but he subsequently said regulator’s board was considering the idea

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Regulator launches statutory inquiry into regeneration charity where £90k went missing

NSA Afan, based in Port Talbot, south Wales, reported the theft to the Charity Commission in May last year

The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into a Welsh community regeneration charity after £90,000 of the charity’s funds went missing following a theft.

NSA Afan, based in Port Talbot, south Wales, contacted the regulator in May 2016 to report a theft at the charity, “with £90,000 of the charity’s funds unaccounted for”, according to the commission.

The charity, which provides community learning and employability schemes in Neath and Port Talbot, had an income of £1.5m and spending of £1.6m in the year to 31 March 2016.

After the serious incident report was submitted, the commission opened a monitoring case to oversee the charity’s response.

In a statement published today, the commission said the monitoring case had prompted “serious concerns about the charity’s governance and internal controls and the apparent failure of the trustees to remedy these issues, placing the charity’s property and its operations at risk”.

Because of these concerns, the commission opened a statutory inquiry in February this year.

The inquiry will examine the charity’s financial controls, its management and application of charitable funds and assets, its governance and whether the charity’s decision-making processes are adequate, especially for handling conflicts of interest.

It will also examine whether the trustees have acted prudently and exercised reasonable care in respect of the day-to-day running of the charity, according to the commission.

In January, the Welsh government suspended funding to the charity amid allegations of the misuse of public funds. 

NSA Afan was due to receive £526,800 in grant funding to deliver the Welsh government’s Communities First programme in Sandfields and Aberavon up to 31 March, but was told on 12 December the funding had been suspended with effect from 1 December, leaving the charity concerned about its future viability.

Ian Isaac, chief executive of NSA Afan, told Third Sector that 12 members of its staff had now been transferred to the local authority because the charity was unable to continue running some of its services without the funding. He said it had been able to continue providing other services out of its own income.

Today the commission said it had been liaising closely with the Welsh government, which it said also had concerns about the governance of the charity.

Isaac described the commission’s concerns about the charity’s governance as “sweeping allegations without evidence”, but said the charity was cooperating fully with the inquiry.

In January, South Wales Police said a 35-year-old woman from the Port Talbot area was arrested on suspicion of theft on 11 August 2016 after a complaint was made by NSA Afan, and had been bailed while the police investigation continued.

Today a police spokesman said: “South Wales Police is continuing to investigate and it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this stage.”

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Regulator begins talks about coordinated responses to domestic disasters

The Charity Commission says it hopes to bring together sector leaders ‘as a matter of urgency’

The Charity Commission has begun talks with sector organisations about providing a more coordinated response to major disasters in the UK.

Hundreds of fundraising appeals have been set up in response to the Manchester and London Bridge terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire, but concerns have been raised about the legitimacy of some of them, particularly those created on fundraising platforms.

JustGiving said last week that more than 250 fundraising pages had been set up on its website to help victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. It added that it would hold on to the funds to ensure that all of the money reached those in need.

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Residents in Kensington and Chelsea have also criticised the lack of a joined-up response to the Grenfell Tower fire disaster despite the efforts of local people, community groups and national charities including the British Red Cross, Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid.

In an opinion piece written for Third Sector on Friday, Sarah Miller, former head of press and public affairs at the Charity Commission and now a communications consultant, said the charity sector should create a domestic equivalent of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which brings together 13 international aid organisations in times of crisis overseas.

She said that having a permanent Domestic DEC secretariat would allow an appeal to be launched swiftly and money distributed from a central point to a wide range of local charities.

The Charity Commission tweeted in reply to Miller’s article:

The commission said in a further statement issued on Friday: “We have begun early talks with established charities with experience of responding to disasters to consider ways of ensuring a coordinated, swift, expert response if and when there are further tragedies.

“We will be looking to convene sector leaders as a matter of urgency when we have all been able to provide the immediate help and support that is required in west London.”

A spokesman for JustGiving said that it had been approached by the Charity Commission about taking part in the discussions.

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RSPCA’s governance must be brought up to standard, says regulator

The Charity Commission was responding to the immediate departure of chief executive Jeremy Cooper, which was announced yesterday

The Charity Commission has said that the RSPCA’s governance should be “brought up to standard” after the charity’s chief executive departed with immediate effect.

The comments follow the news yesterday that Jeremy Cooper had stepped down with immediate effect from his role as chief executive of the charity after just a year in the role.

After Cooper’s departure was announced, a spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said: “The charity is undergoing and implementing a governance review. We have been engaging with the charity, both about this review and more generally about its administration and management.

“The RSPCA is a significant institution and it is important that its governance is brought up to the standard that the public would expect.”

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Cooper, who joined the RSPCA in 2013, became chief executive last year after a difficult period for the charity, including criticism from some sections of the national press for the for the successful prosecution of the Heythrop Hunt and the removal and euthanisation of a number of animals.

He replaced Gavin Grant, who stepped down in 2014 for health reasons after two years as chief executive.

Three trustees of the charity also stepped aside last year amid concerns about how the charity was being run.

In an interview with Third Sector last year after his appointment as chief executive, Cooper said he wanted to provide the society with a clear sense of direction after difficult period.

“The absence of a full leadership team and a permanent chief executive means we’ve been dealing with immediate priorities only,” Cooper told Third Sector at the time. “So the first thing is to take stock and say where we want to go.”

A source close to the situation told Third Sector that Cooper had been asked to leave immediately last week, but the charity said in a statement that he had chosen to move on.

Cooper’s LinkedIn page shows that he is now a strategic business consultant based in West Sussex.

Michael Ward, interim chief executive of the RSPCA, said today that the charity had made “great strides” in recent years.

“We have a new five-year strategy that sets out how we are going to prevent cruelty and create the conditions for improved animal welfare, while continuing to modernise our organisation,” he said.

“My energy will be devoted towards us progressing our enduring mission to protect animals, prevent cruelty and alleviate suffering.”

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Regulator opens inquiry into charity that has failed to file accounts for five years

The All Nations Community Centre was previously part of the Charity Commission’s class inquiry into charities that had persistently failed to file annual documents

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a Gloucestershire-based community centre that has failed to submit any accounts to the regulator since 2011.

The commission said today that it opened the inquiry into the All Nations Community Centre, which provides community activities and educational and social support, after the charity failed to provide accounting information for five financial years from the year ending 30 September 2011.

The charity was previously part of the commission’s class inquiry into charities that have failed to submit their accounts and returns for two or more financial years.

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According to the Charity Commission website, the charity is 1,767 days overdue in filing accounts and/or its annual return for the year to the end of September 2011.

The only annual return or accounts submitted by the charity to the regulator in any of the past five financial years is its annual return for 2011/12, which was received on 18 May this year, 1,388 days late, the commission’s records show.

The commission’s website also shows few contact details for the charity and names none of its trustees.

A commission spokeswoman said the regulator was aware of the charity’s failure to keep its details on the register up-to-date, and was in correspondence with trustees about the issue as part of the inquiry.

According to the charity’s most recent accounts available on Companies House, for the year ending 30 September 2015, the charity made a loss for the year of £6,076 and had a turnover of £39,782.

The Companies House website also shows the charity avoided being struck off the register in February this year, and has one registered company officer.

The Charity Commission said in a statement that its statutory inquiry would consider whether All Nations Community Centre was operating for the public benefit and whether the trustees had complied with their duties and responsibilities.

The inquiry would also focus on the general administration, governance and management of the charity by the trustees, specifically regarding the charity’s property, the regulator said.

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