Decision

Yorkshire Mesmac: case report

Published 24 August 2018

This decision was withdrawn on 18 January 2022

This report has been archived as it is over 2 years old.

About the charity

Yorkshire Mesmac has been registered as a charity since August 1994. The charity’s objects are to preserve and protect the physical and mental health of residents of Yorkshire, in particular the sexual health of men having sex with men, their partners and families.

Why the Charity Commission got involved

In late 2017, media reporting raised concern about the charity’s staff conduct policy - particularly because it appeared to permit non-professional personal relationships between employees and service users of the charity. The Commission engaged with the trustees at this point and obtained assurances and evidence that the policy in question had been reworded to make clear that such relationships were forbidden.

In February 2018 the charity submitted a serious incident report to the Commission regarding the criminal conviction of a former trustee for serious sexual offences. This raised further concerns and led to the opening of a regulatory compliance case in March 2018.

The action we took

Our case looked at when the charity first became aware of the allegations against the trustee and whether it had reported this appropriately to all relevant authorities - including the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) who has responsibility for safeguarding, and to the Commission in line with our guidance on reporting serious incidents.

We also looked at whether there were any other current or historic serious incidents that should have previously been reported.

We scrutinised the charity’s safeguarding arrangements and general governance procedures to assess whether the trustees had fully discharged their duties in managing any risks to beneficiaries as well as to the reputation of both the charity and the wider charitable sector.

This included examining what checks were currently undertaken against employees and others connected to the charity such as DBS checks, and analysing specific procedures in relation to safeguarding.

What we found

We established that the trustee concerned had resigned from the charity in 2014 and had not been actively involved since 2013. The charity trustees had been aware of the allegations through the LADO and the police investigation since at least 2015, but failed to report a serious incident to the Commission at the time.

We obtained assurances that the police did not question the charity as part of their investigation, and that none of the subsequent criminal convictions of the trustee were linked to or related to abuse of charity beneficiaries.

The trustee did not have any sole contact with service users of the charity, so we established that the actual risk of harm to beneficiaries or others connected with the charity had been minimal.

However, a charity should be a space in which everyone feels safe, so trustees should take rigorous action to prevent any such risk. Our enquiries found that the charity’s policies and procedures around safeguarding should be tightened to ensure that this is the case at all times.

We also performed checks to ensure that the individual was not a serving trustee of any other charity. Because of his convictions, the individual is now disqualified under the Charities Act from serving as a charity trustee, reducing any potential risk to the wider sector.

Regulatory action taken

In May 2018 we used our powers under the Charities Act 2011 to issue the charity with formal regulatory advice in the form of an Action Plan.

That plan made clear that:

• the trustees were required to read our guidance around trustee essential duties and the charity Code of Conduct, and ensure that they complied with their legal requirements and apply the recommended practices when making decisions
• the trustees should draft and implement an updated safeguarding policy as a priority, and provide evidence to the Commission of how the policy will be used in practice - we have issued guidance around the essential elements that we would expect to see within such a policy
• the trustees should review all the charity’s internal controls and policies to identify any gaps and set regular and periodic review timescales to ensure they support delivery of the charity’s purposes
• the trustees should review the Commission’s current guidance on reporting serious incidents to inform future decision making

We will be taking follow up action to check that the charity has fully complied with the requirements of our Action Plan.

The impact of our involvement

The charity has acknowledged it should have reported the serious incident to the Commission earlier than it did and as a result of our advice, identified a number of additional historical incidents that have now been retrospectively reported. These have been assessed and we are satisfied the charity has dealt with these separate incidents appropriately.

The trustees have already reviewed their staff recruitment processes and are satisfied they are fit for purpose, with DBS checks being undertaken and regular periodic reviews being carried out against all board members, and appropriate staff and volunteers.

However, given media attention around its activities, the trustees have taken the decision to end their targeted work with young men and boys at risk of sexual exploitation and made arrangements to ensure a winding down of this service. Steps have been taken to ensure that this is a managed process, and the charity is working with partners to ensure that present beneficiaries are supported going forward.

The charity has also commissioned an external expert to review its safeguarding procedures, and appointed a Training and Communications Manager to improve awareness of safeguarding issues. The charity’s social media policy has also been updated to set out clear boundaries and rules around acceptable staff behaviour online.

Our conclusions

Charity trustees have a responsibility to ensure that their charity is a safe and trusted environment for everyone involved with it. As an organisation working with vulnerable groups, we considered that the trustees of Yorkshire Mesmac should have done more to prioritise safeguarding in the past, particularly in terms of reporting.

We concluded that the trustees’ failure to report serious incidents to the Commission left issues of serious regulatory concern unchecked and unmanaged.

Through their actions, the trustees placed the charity and its beneficiaries at undue risk, thereby falling short on important duties around safeguarding and managing risk.

The charity has taken steps to address these issues, and we expect them to now be prioritised accordingly. The trustees cooperated with the Commission throughout our case and have demonstrated a commitment to strengthening the charity’s safeguarding procedures.

Any failure to comply with the regulatory advice issued will be of serious concern to the Commission and may be taken as evidence of mismanagement and misconduct.

Wider Lessons

Safeguarding should be a governance priority for all charities. It is an essential duty for trustees of all charities, regardless of size, type or income to take reasonable steps to safeguard beneficiaries and to protect them from abuse. Additionally, trustees must take reasonable steps to protect staff, volunteers and those connected with the activities of the charity from harm. Trustees should refer to our regulatory alert around safeguarding and our guidance on Safeguarding duties for charity trustees.

Charity trustees have an important responsibility to report serious incidents to the Commission. A serious incident is an adverse event, whether actual or alleged, which results in or risks significant harm to your charity’s beneficiaries, work or reputation, loss of a charity’s money or assets, or damage to your charity’s property. Further guidance is available in How to report a serious incident to the Commission.

Trustees should also regularly review and assess the risks faced by their charity in all areas of its work and plan for the management of those risks, as set out in our guidance on Charities and risk management (CC26).