Failure to provide requested information to the public

The request was successful.

Dear Charity Commission for England and Wales,

Provisions within the Charities Act 2011 impose requirements on Charity Trustees to make certain information available to the public.

I therefore wish to request the following information:

1. The number of cases, recorded by or notified to the Commission, where a Charity Trustee has been found to be in breach of Section 171 and 172 , during the years 2012 to 2017. (ie failure to provide a public copy of Annual Report and Annual Statement of Accounts)
(These statistics should show differentiation between Registered Charities and those with Excepted status.)
2. The amount of fines levied as provided by Section 173, in each of those years, again differentiated between Registered and Excepted status.
3. Given the stipulation of Section 173 and the specific reference to offences committed by Trustees, which body or person is empowered by statute, to instigate proceedings under Statute.
4. Are other options available, within Statute, to enforce provisions of Charity Law, and provide details of where this has happened, since the implementation of the 2011 Act.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Brown

FOI Requests, Charity Commission for England and Wales

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Becky Bbear left an annotation ()

Chris/Interested Readers:

The Commission is not likely to hold the information requested, since it is a Civil Regulator and as such does not itself have powers to bring prosecutions under sections 171 or 172 of the Charities Act 2011.

Where charities fail to comply with these sections any prosecutions would be brought by the requester as a Private Civil Prosecution through the Courts.

Where such cases succeed, penalties would be set by the Court based on the scale referred to in section 173 of the 2011 Act. Those penalties including a term of six months imprisonment and/or a fine based on a standard sliding scale of anything up to several thousand pounds.

Serious business, since those penalties apply not just to a single trustee but to ALL of a charities trustees who were in office at the time of the offence - unless they can individually or collectively prove to the satisfaction of the Court that they had no involvement in or knowledge of the offence, in effect, showing that a single trustee or group of trustees acted alone and without properly informing/consulting their colleagues to obtain a majority decision on their intended action to refuse to provide the documents requested.

Worth noting at this point that sections 171 and 172 of the 2011 Act only require charities to provide copies of their most recent Accounts or Trustees Report - which in the case of charities with annual incomes over £10,000 will already be publicly available on the Commission's website.

Charities (at any level of annual income) are not required under sections 171 or 172 of the 2011 Act to provide copies of older Accounts or Trustees Reports.

Under section 115 of the 2011 Act where Court proceedings are brought against charities by a member of the Public or other Interested Party the consent of the Commission is required in advance, those intending to initiate proceedings needing to supply 'Heads of Claim' to the Commission and seek the necessary consent.

In the context of this request the Commission should however hold details of any such applications, along with corresponding Serious Incident Reports made by charities concerned - since legal action against a charity constitutes a Serious Incident which trustees are obliged to report to the Commission.

Whether that information would be disclosed however is questionable, since to do so may well trigger the exemption under section 31(1)(g) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Details of those making such requests for consent are likely to be considered Personal Information subject to the Data Protection Act 1998, as such those details would be redacted from any information the Commission may decide to release.

Charities reporting pending Court proceedings against them to the Commission may be less likely to do so if that information is made publicly available by the Commission - on the grounds of potential reputational damage to the charity regardless of the actual outcome of any proceedings.

Section 31 is subject to a Public Interest Test, requiring the Commission to balance any possible disclosure between the Public Interest and the interests of the Commission itself as a Regulator - assessing whether the consequent risk of charities becoming reluctant to inform the Commission of proceedings outweighs the Public Interest in being aware of which or how many charities have had proceedings brought against them.

This is a difficult point to balance, since at least some proceedings will lack substance or involve 'quality of service' or 'personal dispute' issues which the Commission does not regulate and which do not themselves involve points of charity law or administration.

An interesting request, well structured, but unlikely to obtain all of the requested information.

Becky

Dear FOI Requests,

I am aware that a response to my request has not been made within the timescale prescribed by the Law.

I am therefore questioning what action you are taking before I progress to the next stage.

Yours sincerely,

Chris Brown

FOI Requests, Charity Commission for England and Wales

Thank you for submitting your Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the
Charity Commission. We will respond within 20 working days.
 
If you have used this email address for a query that is not an FOI
request, we will not reply.
 
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RC Landing & Correspondence (Queue), Charity Commission for England and Wales

1 Attachment

our ref: C-476689-R1H6

Dear Chris Brown,

Please find attached a letter in response to your recent Freedom of
Information request.

Yours sincerely,

The Charity Commission

 W: [1]https://www.gov.uk/charity-commission

[2]Twitter Follow us on Twitter | @ChtyCommission
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On track to meet your filing deadline? Charities have ten months from
their financial year end to file their Annual Return and Accounts. Find
out more at www.charitycommission.gov.uk. Remember to file on time and use
our online services.

Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
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References

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