“At ACEVO we believe firmly in the importance of a well regulated sector in order to protect the people charities are created to serve. We will always support the Commission’s legitimate and necessary work in holding charities to account for effective governance and management, and we actively support our members to help them practice the best possible governance of their organisations.
However, it would appear that the Home Secretary has chosen to use a Charity Commission enquiry into the appropriate governance of a charity to make an irrelevant and politically motivated point about charitable purpose.
It is clearly laid out within regulation that campaigning and political activity can be “legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake” and it is a legal requirement that political campaigning or political activity must be undertaken by a charity only in the context of supporting the delivery of its charitable purposes.
Charities working within the refugee and migrant sector have a legitimate right to campaign and to seek to influence government policy in these areas.
For any politician to suggest that by carrying out that work in line with their charitable objects as agreed by the Charity Commission they are acting against the interests of the British public and in some way ‘masquerading as humanitarians’ is not only deeply insulting to committed professionals and volunteers in our sector but also clearly demonstrates that some in our political system would seek to encroach on and limit our sector’s legally defined rights.
We are glad to see that once again Orlando Fraser, Chair of the Charity Commission, has reiterated his determination that the Commission will not be influenced by political debates or seek to prevent charities from furthering their purposes in line with the law set down by Parliament. At ACEVO we will continue to robustly defend the rights given to our sector by law.”
