Clause 7
Charities Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Andrew Turner (Shadow Minister (Charities), Home Affairs; Isle of Wight, Conservative)
Or, indeed, Dave. The fact that the letter writer did not do that indicates that he might not be an active Conservative party member. He goes on to say:
“I am E-mailing you to ask who is in the lead for the opposition on the Charities Bill, currently at second reading.”
That is why I have been passed this e-mail. It goes on:
“I should say that I am myself no natural conservative”—
with a small “c”—
“I am a Christian socialist and a life-long Labour”—
capital “L”—
“voter. However I have recently been press-ganged into being treasurer of my local church.”
That seems very much akin to the process involved in becoming treasurer of a Conservative association branch. Actually, I understand that that problem is common to all political parties.
The e-mail goes on:
“Now that I see the regulatory burden which is to be imposed by the Charities Bill, and the Statement of Recommended Accounting Practice (SORP 2005) imposed on charities by the Charity Commissioners, I can quite see why no-one else was prepared to be church treasurer. The regulatory burden which will be cast (by the well remunerated) onto the shoulders of the unpaid in the voluntary sector is in my opinion costly, wrong and oppressive.
I would like to interest someone from ‘your side’ in taking this forward with the Gov’t. I would hope this could be done by consensus, by raising the compliance thresholds to £500,000 a year”.
The Parliamentary Secretary will be pleased to know that I do not go along with that proposal exactly.
The e-mail continues:
“In this way medium and large charities would be well regulated and smallish charities would not be dragged into the regulatory regime by inflation (the lower £100,000 threshold has been unchanged since 1993. I quite understand any desire of the Charity Commissioners to extend the scope of that, but the desire to regulate should be balanced by realism. Else the Charity Commissioners will suffocate the volunteers on which small and middling charities rely.)”
That is a good example of the feeling among many charity volunteers, but it is a new example and, because it was sent only on 27 June, it was not put before the Joint Committee. It was not debated in another place during either of the Bill’s outings, but it clearly represents the feelings of volunteers.
There is other evidence as well. Mr. Brough says that he is bringing the issue to my attention for the
“sake of church treasurers throughout the United Kingdom who may not, yet, realise what regulatory burden is about to hit them. We are all unpaid, hard working and hard-pressed. We do not need this additional burden.”
Mrs. Humble, in case you have not heard of SORP, I shall read out what it says about itself. It says that it
“provides guidance on the application of accounting standards (compliance with which is considered necessary, in all save exceptional circumstances, to meet the legal requirement to give a true and fair view) in a manner which takes account of the particular circumstances of charities. In all but exceptional circumstances, charities preparing accruals accounts should follow this SORP’s accounting recommendations to assist in ensuring that their accounts give a true and fair view.”
Of course, none of us is opposed to the reasonable and fair regulation of charities or to proper accounting for the donations—one might almost say the pennies of the poor—that go into charities. Indeed, in my view, it is more important to take care of the pennies of the poor than of the donations of the wealthy.
However, the quality of accounts required by SORP appears to place an unnecessary burden on small charities in particular. That is why I tabled the amendment. The document from SORP grew from 68 pages and 240 paragraphs in 1995 to 89 pages in 2000; the 2005 version has 109 pages and 451 paragraphs. Its size has increased by more than 50 per cent.
Another example provides the same picture. It comes in a letter from Denise King, chief executive of Girlguiding UK that I only received on 15 June. I quoted it earlier, but shall quote it more fully on this occasion. It says:
“Recent emphasis in Charity Commission publications on the responsibilities of charity trustees and the prospective penalties for non-compliance are unhelpful to a largely activity based organisation such as Girlguiding UK, where...charity trusteeship is a very secondary consideration to the role of the volunteer adult leader providing activities for children...Unfortunately, there is some evidence that the insistence on highlighting charity trusteeship is discouraging adult volunteers, who...are averse to being threatened with the consequences of failure in the capacity of charity trustees.”
That is not the approach, certainly not the perception, that we wish to foster in the minds of those who want to devote some of their time to volunteering, whether through assistance to the young through the girl guides, to the advancement of religion through the Church or to the elderly through care homes and so on.
We understand why it has been necessary through other legislation—through Criminal Records Bureau checks, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and so on—to improve standards in care homes, children’s homes, youth volunteering organisations and so on. We understand all that, but what I am talking about is driving people from supporting charities.
It is essential that the Bill should bring forward small measures that redress the balance, and my amendment would introduce one of them. It might be described by the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) as meeting the Cheltenham principle. Like most of my amendments, this amendment does far more than meet that. The Cheltenham principle, as I understand it, is based on what is nice, but the amendment is necessary.