New Charity Commission strategy -- focus on open data is the best bit

TL;DR

• New Charity Commission strategy includes an interesting commitment to open data
• I don't believe the Commission will avoid future charity scandals
• It will be a more campaigning/influencing organisation, which isn't obviously the best move
• A more ambitious strategy would focus on impact more

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Earlier this month (October 2018) the Charity Commission of England and Wales issued a new strategy. This is an important moment for the new Chair, Baroness Tina Stowell, who was appointed amid controversy after MPs opposed her appointment on the grounds of lack of experience of the charity sector and perceived bias.

Open data -- a positive step, but more is needed

This looks like something of a coup for the guys over at Open Charities, who have been campaigning for this for some time.

While it is a welcome step towards enabling data-driven donors, an important question is which data are provided? The Commission doesn't currently gather data about the scale of the impact achieved by charities and how that compares with the amount spent on the intervention. Nor does it gather data on the quality and extent of impact assessment.

At the moment this sort of gap is filled by SoGive, however we at SoGive would be more than for the Commission to take on this mantle.

Will the commission avoid another Oxfam scandal?

The Chair has said that charities must "read the writing on the wall" and warned that charities don't have a monopoly on ways for people to channel their altruistic impulses.

However there is little in the strategy about how this will be achieved, beyond saying that the Commission won't be simply focused on compliance and will use their voice to encourage the sort of behaviour that the public expects.

This will be a raw area for charities who are still reeling after the scandals about sexual harassment among charities (most notably Oxfam).

The Commission is now thinly resourced after the budget was halved several years ago, so their capacity to influence individual charities is limited.

So I predict little change in this department -- there will still be periodic scandals about charities and their behaviour.

Do we want a more campaigning Charity Commission?

The Charity Commission has traditionally focused more on its role as the "police" of the charity sector and has not tried to influence government policy. The new strategy aims to change this.

This is curious, since there are already bodies to do this -- notably the sector body NCVO and other bodies such as ACEVO and think tanks like NPC have a role to play in this too.

Given that the commission is so short on funds, I would suggest that the Commission needs to make a stronger case about why this is the best use of their limited resources.

A better strategy would focus on impact more

The Commission has plenty of potential to make a more exciting strategy. Charities exist to achieve results -- what is referred to in the sector jargon as "impact". There is plenty more the Commission could do to around this, including monitoring the amount of impact achieved by charities, the extent to which charities assess their own impact, and -- in the fullness of time -- making that information public. There is a strong case for this to be done by regulators, given that "market forces" won't cause this to happen by itself.