Charity Commission For England and Wales - Regulatory Action

Regulatory Action

The Commission carries out general monitoring of charities as part of its regular casework. It also has powers set out in the Charities Acts to conduct statutory investigations. However, opening a full statutory inquiry into a charity has a detrimental effect on the relationship with the regulator and can frustrate the intention to achieve a positive outcome. The Commission therefore began around 2007 to carry out an intermediate form of action described as regulatory compliance investigations. In 2010 it opened over 140 of these cases, compared to just three full statutory investigations. However, the legality of these actions was debatable as they lacked a statutory basis. A high-profile example was the Commission's report into The Atlantic Bridge, after which that body was dissolved in September 2011. The Commission announced in October 2011, in the context of cost-cutting and a re-focussing of its activities, that it would no longer carry out regulatory compliance investigations.

Some of the activities of the Commission have been questioned by the Public Administration Select Committee, which oversees the Commission's work. For instance on 23rd October 2012, Charlie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover accused the Commission of “suppressing Christianity”, after the Committee heard that a religious group was refused charitable status by the Charity Commission, despite the group’s attempts to demonstrate that it undertook genuine charitable works. Elphicke asked at the hearing if the Commission was “actively trying to suppress religion in the UK, particularly the Christian religion” and stated “I think they are committed to the suppression of religion”