Correspondence

Charity Commission News: July 2019

Published 13 November 2024

Applies to England and Wales

CC news will be emailed to charity contacts with an instruction to forward to their trustees. It contains essential regulatory information that charities need to be aware of.

Charity whistleblowers: how and why we value them

Trustees have a responsibility to provide a safe environment for all staff and other charity workers. Protecting people and safeguarding responsibilities should be a governance priority for all charities.

An effective culture of keeping people safe identifies, deters and tackles behaviours which minimise or ignore harm to people and cover up or downplay failures. Failures to protect people from harm should be identified, reported to regulators and wider lessons learned.

When concerns are raised within your charity it is vital they are listened to and acted upon before they can cause harm.

Raising concerns takes courage, and those who do so deserve to be taken seriously and treated with respect and sensitivity. This is why we are making it easier for charity workers and volunteers to draw serious concerns about their charity to our attention.

We have been significantly upgrading our support for potential whistleblowers in recent months. We have:

• streamlined the process and re-written our guidance so it is easier to follow
• opened an advice line, operated by the whistleblowing charity Protect
• started to test a new service where we will contact each whistleblower directly to discuss their concerns

Read more in the blog from our Chief Executive Officer, Helen Stephenson CBE, charity whistleblowers: how and why we value them.

New guidance for charities with a connection to a non-charity

If your charity has a close relationship with a non-charitable organisation - such as its founder, trading subsidiary, or a regular partner - you must manage the connection in your charity’s best interests and protect its independence. You need to plan for the risks as well as the benefits that the connection can bring.

Our new guidance for charities with a connection to a non-charity will help you to do this. It draws together relevant law and practice, setting out 6 principles to help trustees run and review these connections.

It follows concerns that some relationships between charities and non-charities have damaged public confidence in charity. It will also help us, as the regulator, to better hold charities to account against existing rules.

Cyber crime and reporting to the Charity Commission

We recently issued an alert to the charity sector about cyber crime and how to report it to us.

Cyber crime has a number of definitions but will usually involve attacks on, or through, computer systems and networks. It often includes theft of data or disruption of systems to enable further crime.

Dependant on the nature of these crimes, trustees, staff, volunteers and beneficiaries of charities may be adversely affected. Negative publicity could also impact on public trust and confidence in not only the charity affected, but the sector as a whole.

The alert explains more about this growing threat, and also includes links to useful guidance and tools to help you protect your charity.

Extended date for changes to public display names on the charity register

As part of changes to our online services, if current trustees have used a public display name on the charity register their full legal name will be displayed to the public, unless they apply to have it removed. This is known as a dispensation.

These changes were due to happen this year (2019) but we have extended this to give trustees more time to apply for a dispensation if needed. The changes will now happen from 1 April 2020.

We can grant a dispensation if displaying a legal name to the public could put the relevant person or people in personal danger. Dispensations will not be granted automatically.

Find out about display name changes and how to apply for a dispensation.

If trustees have already been granted a dispensation for their legal name not to be displayed to the public on the register, this will be retained. There is no need to apply for a dispensation again.

Check and update your charity details

From 12 November 2018, the first time you log in to your online account to do your annual return or update your charity details you will need to check and confirm your charity details are correct, or update them if needed.

Other changes to the update charity details service include:

• removal of public display names for trustees on the charity register
• linking trustee details - if a person is a trustee of more than 1 charity, changes to their details will be applied to all their entries on the charity register

Find out about changes to updating charity details and what information is covered in the service.

If you need help to prepare an annual return our guidance explains what you need to do.

Charities working internationally: how to assess risk

Charities working internationally can face certain risks because of their operating environment including:

• the application of financial sanctions
• greater levels of corruption or criminal activity
• the presence of terrorists, proscribed groups or designated entities

As a risk-led regulator, we focus on areas of higher risk and we expect the same of trustees. Our International Charities Engagement Team recently published a blog to help you assess risk more effectively. It also includes links to risk management tools, which can help you protect your charity from harm.

How to assess risk for charities working internationally.

HMRC’s criminal offences for failing to prevent tax facilitation - what they are and what to do

HMRC is reminding companies and partnerships (including charities) that they can be criminally liable if they fail to prevent their staff or those that represent them from facilitating illegal tax evasion.

The offence, which came into force in September 2017, does not substantially alter what is illegal tax evasion, but focuses on who is held accountable for enabling or allowing it.

Rather than try and attribute illegal tax evasion to an organisation, it focuses on the failure of that organisation to prevent those who work for, act for or on behalf of from committing criminal tax evasion.

HMRC has published information about this, including what organisations can do to build their internal procedures in light of the offences. The ‘corporate criminal offences’ can also be found in Part 3 of the Criminal Finances Act 2017.

HMRC has also launched a new dedicated self-reporting route for organisations that have failed to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion. Find out how to self-report, and why it may be in an organisation’s interest on the Tell HMRC your organisation failed to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion webpage on GOV.UK.

If you have any queries about preventing tax facilitation please contact HMRC.

Extended contact centre opening hours

We recently extended the opening hours of our contact centre by 2 hours per day, to help enhance customer service. This is a 3 month trial (from 1 May 2019) and we will assess whether the new opening hours meet your needs better.

Our new opening hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to midday and 1pm to 4pm. The telephone number is 0300 066 9197.

New Charity Commission email addresses

Our email addresses have changed, they no longer have .gsi in the address. You will need to update any records that include Charity Commission email addresses.

For example, change:

• inboxname@charitycommission.gsi.gov.uk

to:

• inboxname@charitycommission.gov.uk

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