Neville Brownlee emphatically rejects suggestions that the Charity Commission does not respond properly to whistleblowers from within charities.

The recent article entitled Whistleblowing – what do chief executives do about trustee wrongdoing? suggested that the Charity Commission treats whistleblowing reports from charity staff members as employment matters – and therefore as matters outside our regulatory remit – as a matter of policy. This is emphatically not the case and is damaging insofar as it discourages charity staff members with concerns about the conduct of trustees from coming forward.

First, under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, we are the regulatory body to whom workers can make disclosures on the proper administration of charities. Our website makes clear that workers who are aware of wrongdoing in a charity are protected when raising concerns in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Types of wrongdoing covered by the Act include criminal offences, breaches of legal obligation and danger to the health and safety of individuals, among other areas. We take the provisions of the Act extremely seriously.  

Second, beyond our legal duties the Commission as regulator relies to a great extent on whistleblowing reports in identifying and tackling abuse. In 2012/13, we received 98 whistleblowing reports, all were assessed and 78 (76 per cent) were escalated to more specialist teams for further work.  

So the author of the article was not correct in suggesting that the Commission rejects out of hand any complaints that are made by charity staff members about trustees.

We encourage anyone who has any concerns about trustees’ compliance with charity law to come to us and we assess all complaints carefully.