New Charity Inquiry: Human Care Hands Foundation UK
Charity regulator opens inquiry into north London-based charity
The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into Human Care Hands Foundation UK (1127148), a humanitarian charity with objects to relieve poverty and advance education throughout the world, due to concerns over misconduct and/or mismanagement at the charity.
Following an examination of the charity’s books and records, the Commission has serious concerns over the financial management and governance of the charity, which include the late filing of the charity’s annual accounts and returns, a number of irregularities in the submitted accounts, inadequate financial controls and the couriering of cash overseas with insufficient controls.
The charity’s main source of income is cash collections raised through a large number of static collection tins. However, the trustees are unable to account for all of the charity’s tins or the resulting income. As a result of the regulatory concerns the Commission opened an inquiry on 26 September 2019. The inquiry has exercised its power to restrict the trustees from certain cash transactions in order to protect the charity’s property.
The inquiry is examining:
- the trustees’ compliance with both charity law and the law as it relates to the charity and its administration, and;
- the charity’s governance and financial controls including handling of cash, filing of accounts and monitoring and verification of overseas expenditure.
It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK
Ends.
Notes to Editors:
- The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales; our role is to regulate charity trustees’ compliance with the charity law framework.
- Section 76(3)(f) of the Charities Act gives the Commission power to restrict certain transactions that the trustees can enter into. This is a temporary and protective measure.
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