Alastair Keatinge contributed his thoughts on the publicity that the figures raised in the latest issue of Third Force News (June 2019) and an extract of the article follows.
Interesting debate followed the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) releasing figures that charities have reported over 300 ‘notifiable events’ over the past three years.
On one side, we have observers noting how high the numbers are; on the other, we have people saying they’re low. Alastair admits that he’s one of the latter.
Alastair had no intention of downplaying the number of serious concerns reported. He acknowledges that they relate to serious issues such as fraud, theft, financial loss or safeguarding, so every incident is one too many.
Rather, with over 24,000 charities registered in Scotland and just over 300 events reported over three years, he believes there is under-reporting of notifiable events. Charity trustees are not legally obliged to raise concerns with OSCR, and this leaves the door open for them to attempt to keep serious problems in-house.
This is not a criticism of the work of OSCR, whose two-way communication with charities is good. But as long as there’s a temptation for charities to try to stay under the radar, it won’t be possible for the regulator, or anyone else, to have a clear picture of the risks applying to individual charities or the wider sector.
Ideally, legislation would address this, imposing a legal obligation on charities to report serious events to OSCR.
Obviously, we should be practical here. No one wants regulators inundated by reports of very minor incidents; nor do we want charities suffering unwarranted reputational damage by having to put everything in the public domain. But transparency is good for the sector – in part, because giving daylight to an issue can provide reassurance that it’s being dealt with effectively.
Rather than wait for legislative change, charities and their trustees can themselves drive progress. Instead of asking ‘Must we report X?’ they could ask, ‘Should we report X?’ The reporting of notifiable events could be approached as a governance issue, not a legal one.
The Scottish Governance Code for the Third Sector states, ‘A well-run board… embraces and demonstrates mutual respect, integrity, openness and accountability’. In this regard, it’s a mistake to focus on the single issue of notifiable events. Instead, openness and accountability should apply to a range of matters from decision-making, to diversity and equality practices, to how complaints and concerns are dealt with.
Many charities are already making good progress on transparency and other governance issues, but naturally in a sector this diverse, others have a way to go. Adopting the Scottish Governance Code is a good starting point. It’s accessible and flexible, and its principles can usefully be adopted into a charity’s governing document.
Alastair doesn’t hope to see fewer notifiable events reported next year – that could still be due to under-reporting. But would hope to see more charities commit to report them (and perhaps mention them in their Annual Report), and to adopt the Governance Code. The whole sector would benefit.