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Charities Bill

I never like to make commitments on amendments, but I should be very surprised if that were not already possible. I am fairly sure that it is, because I am fairly sure that I know someone with learning difficulties who is involved. I shall examine the position. Chapter 9 of part 2 contains three provisions that will be helpful to trustees in their stewardship of charities. The first will allow a charity to pay a trustee who is willing and able to provide his or her charity with a professional or trade service that it needs. I emphasise that the Bill will not allow payment of a trustee for carrying out the ordinary duties of trusteeship, nor will it allow charities’ paid employees to be trustees at the same time. It preserves the voluntary principle of trusteeship which is part of the ethos of charity. The second provision will allow trustees to apply to the Charity Commission for relief from personal liability for breach of trust when they have acted honestly and reasonably, but their action has nevertheless caused some loss to their charity. The third will allow trustees to pay for trustee indemnity insurance using their charity’s money. Those measures are intended to encourage more people to become or continue as trustees by giving them confidence that they will not be personally penalised for an honest mistake. The fear of having to pay out of one’s own pocket to make good an honest mistake can be a real deterrent both to the taking on of a trusteeship and to innovation in the running of a charity. Chapters 10 and 11 of part 2 will allow smaller charities to alter their own constitutions without needing the Charity Commission’s permission. The rules restricting charities’ abilities to spend their capital endowments will also be relaxed, though the concurrence of the commission will be required before they may override the wishes of a donor who has given a large sum as an endowment on condition that only the income from it can be spent. Some legal and technical obstacles to mergers between charities will also be removed. Decisions whether or not to merge will of course remain for charities themselves: it is not the Government’s role to procure mergers between charities or to put pressure on charities to merge. However, it should be easier for them to merge, if that is their wish. An important part of the Bill, part 3, is the reforms to the regulation of public charitable collections. The present arrangements do not work as well as they could, because different types of collection are subject to different sets of licensing rules, and because the rules are applied differently from one local authority to another. Through the Charities Act 1992 it was intended to introduce a new scheme for the regulation of fundraising, but the relevant part of the 1992 Act was never introduced because the proposed scheme was thought to be unworkable in practice. We propose in part 3 of the Bill a new, unified licensing scheme to iron out the inconsistencies. We responded to a recommendation made by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill by giving the Charity Commission the role of determining the eligibility of organisations to carry out public collections. Charities and other bodies wanting to carry out public collections will be able to apply to the Charity Commission for a public collections certificate lasting for up to five years. Public collections in the street will continue to require, as well as that certificate, a permit from the local authority to authorise the time and place of the collection. For public collections from house to house, which includes from pub to pub, a public collections certificate will be needed and the collection must be notified to the local authority. The Bill brings face-to-face fundraising, sometimes called ““chugging””, within the statutory licensing scheme. Elsewhere in part 3 there is a reserve power for the Government to introduce a statutory scheme for the regulation of charity fundraising generally. We have said that that power will be exercised only if self-regulation fails. I am glad to say that self-regulation, led by the recently established Fundraising Standards Board, is getting off the ground very well. The Government hope and expect that self-regulation will be effective in the longer term, although the power in the Bill will be available should self-regulation fail.