In Depth:  Ben Bourne

The responsibilities on charity trustees aren’t letting up.

With intervention in or removal of charities by the Charity Commission for those repeatedly filing late returns, increased powers to suspend or disqualify non-compliant trustees, and its new weapon to issue formal publishable warnings for charities that get into difficulty with their compliance, it seems there is little margin for error for the modern charity trustee. Now the Commission is turning its beady eye towards those charities which fund or support overseas ministries.

The almost unthinkable collapse of Kids Company took place in August 2015.

Founded in 1996, the charity was set up to provide support to vulnerable and deprived inner city children and young people. At the time of its closure the charity employed more than 600 people and worked across a number of cities in the UK. In its years of operation it received more than £42 million of public funding. Its founder, the colourful Camila Batmanghelidjh, was its chief executive for 19 years and was awarded a CBE for her services to the charity and young people.

The report of the Charity Commission following its investigation into the operation of registered charity The Air Ambulance Service, published in August, provides a salutary warning for all charity trustees serving on Boards up and down the country.

As part of its investigation, the Commission found that the chair of trustees had personally sanctioned a loan of £27,000 to the CEO of the charity out of charity funds. Good intentions no doubt lay behind the chair’s decision to make the loan. Indeed, the justification for the loan was that the chair was keen to retain the high-performing CEO who it seems had been working to the great benefit of the charity. At all times it appears the loan was being repaid by the CEO and, in addition, the size of the loan was not outrageous, given that such loans are sometimes made between a company and its senior staff in the private sector.