The Charity Commission failed to handle properly safeguarding concerns related to a historic child sexual abuse at a school founded and ran by a charity, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has concluded.
The regulator agreed to pay £1,000 to complainant Damian Murray after the PHSO found that some of its actions amounted to maladministration.
However, the commission and PHSO remain in discussion over some of the ombudsman’s findings.
Complaints made to public bodies
In 2017, Murray discovered from a memoir that a peer at his former secondary school had been subjected to child sexual abuse in the late 1970s by a headteacher and priest.
At the time of the abuse, the school was founded and run by a religious congregation, which was a registered charity.
Several teachers at the school were priests in the religious congregation, according to PHSO’s investigation.
Murray believed that there had been other instances of child sexual abuse at the school.
So, he made complaints to the Department for Education (DfE) and the commission with “evidence of deliberate, serious, pervasive and persistent failure in management and corporate governance in relation to the concealment of child sexual abuse by the religious congregation” between 2018 and 2020.
But Murray claimed that both entities failed to respond appropriately to the allegations he made.
He said the commission “failed to undertake an appropriate investigation of his concerns and reached incorrect, unsupported and poorly explained conclusions in respect of the registered charity”.
‘Maladministration by the commission’
PHSO’s investigation concluded today that the commission failed to understand or consider all the relevant issues that Murray raised.
It stated that some of the commission’s actions amounted to maladministration, and it did not act in accordance with its risk assessment and safeguarding guidance when it made key decisions to open and close its case on Murray’s concerns.
As a result, it recommended that the commission should apologise to Murray for its actions, address the failure PHSO has identified and pay £1,000 to Murray in recognition of the injustice he has suffered.
Murray said: “The ombudsman has correctly identified the serious injustice and maladministration to which I was subjected by DfE and the Charity Commission when raising my concerns.
“I am very grateful to the Parliamentary Ombudsman for the seriousness, thoroughness, and empathy with which it has dealt with my complaint.
“The continuing refusal by the commission to do its job properly, to respond constructively to the ombudsman’s findings, or even to acknowledge the serious, well-evidenced concerns that I put to it, is simply unacceptable.”
Commission: ‘We remain in discussion with PHSO’
The ombudsman Rebecca Hilsenrath said: “In this case, the Charity Commission failed to properly handle Damian’s complaint about serious safeguarding concerns.
“It is important that the commission acknowledges its mistakes and puts things right. The commission has provided financial redress, but discussions remain ongoing about other aspects of compliance.
“The commission must accept accountability and take decisive action on the basis of our recommendations so that others do not undergo the same experiences in the future.”
A commission spokesperson told Civil Society: “We have accepted the PHSO’s recommendations as set out in the report.
“However, we are clear that we do not accept the PHSO has the jurisdiction to make specific findings relating to the reasoning behind any of our regulatory decisions.
“We remain in discussion with PHSO about our compliance with the recommendations.
“We recognise that Murray’s complaint about the charity arose from some very difficult personal experiences, both for him and for others.”
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