Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I welcome the following officials to the meeting via Zoom. We are joined by Gerald Oppenheim, chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator; Lisa Caldwell, an NI board member; Paul Winyard, director of policy; and Gráinne Matthews, stakeholder and policy manager here in the North.

Gerald, I will go to you for a brief opening statement. We have your briefing paper on what you do. We have been under time pressure today and are keen to focus on the Bill, so I ask you to make some brief opening remarks about the Bill, please, and we can then get to members' questions. Thank you, Gerald.

Mr Gerald Oppenheim (Fundraising Regulator): Thank you for your time today. We really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you and take your questions. I am chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator, and with me are with Lisa Caldwell, the regulator's board member for Northern Ireland, and two of my colleagues from the policy team: Gráinne Mathews, our stakeholder manager in Northern Ireland, and Paul Winyard, our director of policy.

We are very supportive of the legislation that you are considering, particularly clause 2, because that would give us and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) the opportunity to work closely together in the way that we can do already with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, with which we have an engaged relationship and are able to exchange information on casework, policy considerations and some other major projects that we have on the go where there is a mutuality of interest. It is particularly important in casework that we are able to exchange information so that the charity that might be the subject of a complaint from, let us say, a member of the public knows how the complaint is being handled by both regulators and does not get bombarded by two regulators asking the same thing.

The Fundraising Regulator is not a statutory body, but the Charity Commission for England and Wales has long had powers that enable it to share information, in its own interest, with bodies that work closely with it. Our view is that the proposals in clause 2 would give the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland the same capacity to work with us formally and through other exchanges of information that regulators have from time to time on the basis that we are very like a public body and operate in exactly the same way. In a nutshell, Chair and Committee, that is why we are very supportive of clause 2 and, indeed, other provisions in the Bill, but clause 2 is our main direct interest.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you very much. On your support for clause 2, will you give the Committee practical examples of where existing arrangements between you and CCNI have restricted or complicated the sharing of information? What difference might that proposed regulation make?

Mr Oppenheim: I go back, Chair, to the point that I made just now on casework. When we get a complaint, irrespective of whether the complaint is justified, we have to carry out some investigations or make enquiries. Often, it is helpful to know from the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland whether it has opened casework that may or may not impinge on the matter that we are looking at. Whilst we can share our concerns directly with the commission in Northern Ireland, it is, perhaps, more difficult for the commission to share with us, particularly when some of that information might be sensitive in some way. That is where it would make an immediate, practical and important difference.

It would also make a difference when we are working more generally across all nations of the United Kingdom to secure future changes to the way in which fundraising legislation operates to modernise definitions and so on.

If we could do that on the same basis with the regulator in Northern Ireland, the statutory regulator in England and Wales and the regulator in Scotland, it would make a huge difference to the exchange of information and the frankness with which we could do business.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you. You have raised some concern about public assurance where organisations below the registration threshold continue to fundraise. At the same time, you suggest that there should be enhanced fundraising reporting for larger charities. What specific measures would you like to see at each end of that spectrum, and what evidence is there that additional reporting by larger charities improves transparency and public confidence without creating disproportionate burdens on them?

Mr Oppenheim: We are absolutely clear that we do not want to add burdens to any charity, large or small. That is not helpful. I will start with the larger charities. In England and Wales, we have a provision in legislation whereby charities with an income of over £1·5 million — the legislation says £1 million, but it has been amended to £1·5 million for other reasons — need to include in the annual report that they are already preparing and writing only brief statements about their fundraising and the way in which they handle complaints that come directly to the charity. They can include numbers or examples, but that is discretionary. They also have to say that they have a complaints policy and arrangements in place to make sure that their fundraising is carried out as it should be and, in our case, in a way that accords with the code of fundraising practice, which is our core document.

At the lower end, we find that the way in which smaller charities can, without meaning to, often carry out some of their fundraising is suboptimal. It is important that smaller charities that fundraise register with us, show their commitment to the code of fundraising practice and, in doing so, display the Fundraising Regulator badge, which you can probably see on the wall behind me, as a mark of confidence to the public that what they do and how they do it is respectful and that there is a commitment to doing fundraising well.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Official warnings and reputational impact featured heavily in the previous two sessions. Committee members have expressed concern, curiosity and interest around that element. You support the proposed official warning power, but your written evidence does not address the safeguards around publication and reputational impact. From a fundraising and donor confidence perspective, what safeguards are necessary before an official warning to a charity is made public?

Mr Oppenheim: That is an interesting and complex question. Our experience shows that, from time to time, a fundraising issue — if you like, a failure in fundraising — is an indication that other things are going seriously wrong in a charity from an overall governance point of view. Our obvious concern is with how the money that comes into the charity is raised. The charity commissions in Northern Ireland, England and Wales and Scotland will be concerned more widely with how the money is spent, as well as with overall governance. We have had experience with charities here in which a fundraising issue or fundraising failure, which is sometimes quite public because the media has got on to it, is a direct proxy for other things that have been going wrong. That has happened in a few cases. Bearing in mind that official warnings and eventual disbarment, if that is what happens, are rare, it is important that the public are assured that the powers are there to deal with the most serious issues that arise. If it is helpful to the Committee, I am sure that we can put in an extra note via the Clerk to flesh that out a little.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): That would be very helpful indeed.

Ms K Armstrong: Thank you very much, Gerald. It is really useful to hear from you.

Have you any considerations on the disapplication for smaller charities, one of which will be the asset register? In Northern Ireland, some smaller community organisations have had an asset transfer completed and have, perhaps, taken ownership of a property or a piece of land. As far as donors are concerned, how can we improve the relationship and accountability on that? Would that be harmed by removing the asset register or the requirements to report on that? Have you any concerns in that regard?

Mr Oppenheim: One of the pluses of having an asset register, even for smaller organisations, is exactly the point that you make around transparency: if there is a question, it is possible to point to something. Again, assets come into question sometimes as part of an approach by a charity on fundraising. We are certainly aware of issues in England and Wales. I am not quite so sure about Northern Ireland or Scotland, but, in England and Wales, there have been occasions where organisations that are not registered charities but are very like registered charities, in that they have some public benefit clauses in their rules, have got into difficulty over asset locks and asset ownership. In those terms, transparency is helpful. Obviously, it is a matter of what best suits arrangements in Northern Ireland when it comes to where the line is drawn for those smaller organisations with regard to their turnover or their income and expenditure more generally. I do not think that we take a formal position on that.

Ms K Armstrong: OK. Thank you very much. It is helpful to understand that, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I have a final question, Gerald. You do not have statutory sanctioning powers, but you investigate complaints and report a high level of compliance with your decisions. Where you identify serious fundraising misconduct, how does your process of escalation to the Charity Commission here operate? Would the Bill provide the regulatory tools necessary to deal effectively with cases where voluntary compliance is not sufficient?

Mr Oppenheim: Thank you, Chairman. Yes, indeed: clause 2, and the Bill as a whole, would give much greater capacity to bring the commission in Northern Ireland, as the statutory regulator, into play should there be a failure to agree with recommendations that we have made where, let us say, breaches of the code of fundraising practice have taken place and we have made recommendations for improvement. We find that the approach that we take — however awkward and embarrassing it might be for a few charities, at least — means that we can work with a charity to secure improvements, but the charity also knows that the fallback is that we refer formally to the statutory regulator. We believe that it is a useful tool to have to ensure public assurance and public confidence in fundraising, as well as in the way in which charities directly deliver their services and support to those who need them.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. Thank you.

Gerald, in common with our two previous sessions, this session has given us a really useful perspective. Again, it is a very different perspective, which is very useful to the Committee in our consideration and scrutiny of the Bill. We look forward to receiving the further information that you have helpfully promised us and any further engagement that we may have with you. Thank you. I wish you all the very best in your important work in the future. Thanks for now.

Mr Oppenheim: Thank you, Chair and Committee.