Acevo has shelved its planned Low Commission report into charity regulation, which was announced two years ago, and has said it will instead produce “a series of more targeted outputs”.
Acevo has said those outputs will involve a number of smaller reports, including one into charity campaigning.
Lord Low of Dalston was announced as the chair of an Acevo-backed commission in October 2014, intended to take a “holistic and radical look at the environment in which UK charities and other non-profits operate”. It had initially intended to produce a report with its findings in autumn 2015.
Acevo has now told Civil Society News that while the project continues, ongoing changes to fundraising regulation mean it will not produce a single report but is instead focusing on a “series of more targeted outputs”. It insisted this did not mean the original report had been "shelved".
The launch of the Low Commission was prompted by the Public Accounts Committee’s conclusion that the Charity Commission was “not fit for purpose” and intended to look at what changes could be made to improve the regulatory framework and remove red tape.
Acevo’s statement in full
In a statement Acevo said: “Acevo’s project on charity regulation continues. Shifts in the regulatory landscape of the sector, especially around fundraising and campaigning, meant that our planned long-form report which was to be released in autumn 2015, was overtaken by events.
“The landscape continues to fluctuate and we have decided to move away from the release of one large report and instead focus on a series of more targeted outputs, some of which have already begun to influence our public policy positions on key areas such as the Charity Commission and freedom of information.
“We are in the process of finalising a public output from this project which will focus on the recommendations for reform of regulation around charity campaigning.”
Acevo has not said what the outputs of the process will be, but it insisted the project had not been "shelved". In fact, a spokesman said the project may even become bigger than originally intended: "I don't know whether our eventual output in aggregate will represent a greater output than one single report. It may do, in which case it may be characterised as an expansion, but at this point I don't know whether it is an expansion of the project."
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