From 28-30 October, charity regulators from eight nations gathered in the UK for a three-day meeting.
From: The Charity Commission
Published 4 November 2024
Representatives and Heads of Regulators from Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Singapore, in addition to an observing invitee from the United States, met to discuss matters of mutual interest and concern.
Regulators recognised the world is currently dealing with substantial challenges including evolving social environments with changing patterns of volunteering, climate change and more natural disasters, cost of living pressures driving higher demand for services and costs of running organisations, and the need to support populations through conflict not seen for a generation.
Regulators affirmed that given this current global context, the work of charities and not-for-profit organisations has never been more important. Charities and not-for-profit organisations have a long history of enabling society to adapt, improving the lives of millions globally, and supporting and enabling cohesion where there has been division. Working across sectors to find solutions to the world’s most challenging problems, they are fundamental to world class research, scientific endeavour and policy change that enables health, environmental and animal welfare issues to be advanced.
Regulators shared examples of how effective, expert regulation plays a fundamental part in allowing charities to thrive and allows the public to have trust and confidence in the work of charities. Our organisations each contribute to supporting and ensuring strong governance in charities, so that they deliver their charitable purpose for the benefit of all. Regulators have been delighted to advance our shared objectives at this meeting through the exchange of knowledge and best practice.
The meeting covered four key themes:
Charity registration and charitable status
Registration is the start of the journey for new charities and trustees, and at the core of each of our roles is making efficient, effective decisions to ensure genuine applicants can begin delivering their charitable purpose.
Regulators:
- shared improvements to our respective processes for registration, acknowledging the constraints inherent in applying a legal test.
- gained valuable insights from other jurisdictions approaches to improve the quality of applications from prospective charities
- shared plans to digitise and improve registration services within jurisdictions
- shared trends and case studies on those seeking to abuse charity status but were prevented from doing so
- agreed, subject to national jurisdictions laws and restrictions, to improve data sharing to prevent cross border abuse of charity status via the registration process
- agreed to explore how to enable simpler but robust registration services for those who work across borders
Digital, technology and data
Regulators are at different stages in their journeys of delivering new digital technologies, with a particular focus across each jurisdiction on using online services to enhance relationships with charity trustees, ensuring we provide charities with the best guidance and tools, as well as driving regulatory efficiency. Regulators discussed experiences in delivering recent innovations, and how charities in their jurisdiction responded, to inform each of our future plans.
Regulators:
- agreed to share digital and technology plans to enable better cross jurisdiction co-operation and experience for charities and the public
- agreed, subject to national laws and regulations, to share emerging trends, issues, impacts of technology on charities, charity regulation and policies to enable the benefits of technology to be exploited whilst mitigating risks and unintended consequences.
Communication, education and public trust
Regulators identified many commonalities in our approaches to using social media, events and guidance to secure greater engagement with charities, particularly those who are traditionally harder to reach or might have less knowledge.
Regulators:
- identified several approaches that have been successfully applied in individual nations and have taken away from the meeting ideas as to how these could potentially be translated into new national initiatives.
- welcomed the contribution such work programmes make in delivering our core remit to build public trust and confidence in charity, and in our own effectiveness.
Compliance
Regulators reviewed global trends in charity non-compliance, and how these have been addressed through use of regulatory powers. Discussion of recent domestic cases with international significance, allowed identification of issues in common, that might damage the vast majority of genuine, compliant charities.
With many charities and voluntary organisations working extensively across international borders, Regulators:
- affirmed that, subject to national laws and regulations, we will continually share appropriate insight so we can each effectively tackle such risks, acting within our legislative frameworks.
- affirmed, we each have a central role to play in supporting compliance with The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, to ensure the substantial amount of money that flows across borders to facilitate the vital work of the sector is safe and secure and charities may continue to deliver vital services to the world’s most vulnerable.
The group will be hosted by a different member when they next reconvene in the spring of 2026. Until then, Regulators will continue their online quarterly meetings to build on these positive discussions to ensure lessons continue to be shared and the international community of charity Regulators remains united.
Delegate List
- David Holdsworth – Chief Executive, England & Wales
- Orlando Fraser KC – Chair, England & Wales
- Paul Latham – Director of Communications & Policy, England & Wales
- Sue Woodward AM – Commissioner, Australia
- Natasha Sekulic – Assistant Commissioner – General Counsel, Australia
- Sharmila Khare – Director General, Charities Directorate, Canada
- Madeleine Delaney – Chief Executive, Ireland
- Geraldine McCarthy – Head of Communications, Ireland
- Frances McCandless – Chief Executive, Northern Ireland
- Punam McGookin – Head of Charity Services, Northern Ireland
- Martin Tyson – Head of Regulation and Improvement, Scotland
- Desmond Chin – Commissioner of Charities, Singapore
- Izyana Baharom – Assistant Director, Singapore
- Observer: Beth Short – President of the National Association of State Charity Officials, United States
Joint communique from International Charity Regulator leaders – GOV.UK