The Charity Commission has issued its first-ever official warning to a local authority, accusing it of failing to comply with its duties as trustee of 13 charities.
Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council has failed to file annual returns and accounts for all 13 charities for several years, the regulator said.
Its official warning dated 12 August states that the council’s failure to comply with an action plan the Commission issued in 2023 amounts to misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charities.
The Commission ordered the council to file all the outstanding accounts and implement processes to ensure all 13 charities comply with their accounting responsibilities in future.
It told the authority to hold regular trustee meetings, ensuring all councillors are aware of their duties and responsibilities, treating all charities as separate entities.
The regulator said Calderdale Council must review the financial controls of all 13 charities, taking steps to record and implement processes and provide evidence of this to the Commission.
It also told it to provide up-to-date contact details for all 13 charities and locate and identify all of them on a local register containing details about the charities and their assets.
The Commission warned the council that failure to take remedial steps within six months and any additional breach of duty may lead to further regulatory action.
Council: ‘We will learn from this’
Scott Patient, Calderdale Council’s deputy leader, said: “We acknowledge the official warning from the Charity Commission and are taking this very seriously.
“We accept that our work to file accounts for the charities for which we are trustees should have been better, and the delay does not meet our high service standards.
“We are confident that the charitable purpose of all the charities is being fulfilled.
“We are working to correct the delayed filing of accounts and will act on all of the Charity Commission’s requirements.
“We will learn from this and put procedures in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Council ‘fell below the standard we expect’, says regulator
Tracy Howarth, assistant director of regulatory services at the Commission, said trustees’ duty to ensure that their charities are well managed is really important when vital community assets are in their care.
Calderdale, one of over 1,200 councils across England and Wales that are trustees of charities, oversees local community assets such as Bacup Road Recreational Ground, Tetley Memorial Park and Public Central Library.
The council is also a trustee of the People’s Park, Shaw Park, Long Wood, King George V Playing Field – Brighouse (Hipperholme), Henry Whiteley’s Park, Halifax Open Spaces, Roils Head Road Recreation Ground, Shibden Park, Beacon Hill Recreation Ground and the Heath Charity.
“In failing to file accounts or take action, even after we provided advice and gave support to comply with our instructions, Calderdale council fell below the standard we, and the public, expect of trustees,” said Howarth.
“In light of this, we have now issued it with an official warning, which is the first time we’ve used this power with any council.
“All local authorities who serve as trustees should take note of our advice to ensure they understand what it means to be a trustee.”
Last month, the Commission wrote to all English and Welsh councils setting out “urgent” steps they needed to take after seeing a “significant number of cases where local authorities have failed to comply with their legal duties as charity trustees”.
It also published updated guidance in partnership with the Local Government Association.
This followed the Commission reprimanding Sheffield City Council in July over a number of potentially unlawful decisions it had taken in relation to a charity-owned park.
Related Articles
