Pledge “CharityReform”
"I will protest for a day outside the offices of the Charity Commission and ICR but only if 30 other concerned citizens and people who donate to charities will support my call for the charities these bodies regulate to be made more accountable."
— des.curley, Concerned Citizen
Deadline to sign up by: 25th December 2007
32 people signed up (2 over target)
Country: United Kingdom
More details
The Charity Commission , http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk, is established by law as the regulator and registrar for charities in England and Wales and the Commission claims to provide to provide " the best possible regulation of charities in England and Wales in order to increase charities' effectiveness and public confidence and trust".
That public trust is clearly misplaced as the Independent Complaints Reviewer ,http://www.icrev.demon.co.uk/icrbook.htm, who has responsibility for investigating complaints about the Charity Commission wrote in her 2006 Annual Report :
" the Commission can help people take their complaints about charities forward in the right way is by encouraging charities themselves to buy in to the concept and importance of well structured internal complaints processes. The
Commission’s recent report, ‘Cause for Complaint’,
demonstrates that commitment to this area of
good practice is far from universal.
In fact, this showed that 70% of charities have no
complaints procedure, 79% don’t think that they
need one and, of particular concern to the ICR, a
worrying 77% of small and medium sized charities
think that it is the Commission’s job to deal with
complaints for them."
So, almost 80% of the charities in England and Wales want your money or corporate sponsorship but shun the level of professional accountability one would expect anyone working with vunerable groups or individuals - which many of these charities do - to be subject to.
This appalling lack of accountability leads to horror stories like this http://whoaretheyreallyworkingfor.blogsp... and the intended beneficiaries of charities having no means to flag up serious problems .
This cannot be right.
Please support this pledge to flag up to the Charity Commission and the ICR and charities in England and Wales themselves that registered charity status should not be awarded to organisations that have no complaints processes and shun being professionally accountable for how they treat their service users.
These charities do not need to be 'encouraged to buy into professional accountability' by a useless bureaucracy we pay for , individuals and companies should stop donating to or sponsoring charities that do not have complaints procedures to protect those they claim to serve.
Thank you for your support.
