Money4YOU, a financial education charity, has criticised the Charity Commission action to address diversity in the sector.
It comes in response to a new report, Foundation Practice Rating (FPR), which found charitable foundations had a particularly “poor performance” on diversity.
Campaigns and advocacy officer at Money4YOU, Jay Richardson, said these “dire results” were due to failures of leadership by foundations and the Charity Commission.
“By choosing not to monitor diversity in our sector, the Charity Commission turns a blind eye and renders itself a bystander,” he said.
He went onto say “the fact that over a dozen foundations have taken it upon themselves to collect and publish their own regulatory data on equalities is a damning indictment of the Charity Commission’s lack of leadership and performance”.
The Commission rejected Richardson's criticisms, and said it has been engaging with sector stakeholders on diversity schemes.
“Sector-led transparency initiatives like FPR should be welcomed”, a spokesperson from the regulator said.
The regulator said it is working with its partners to expand the data available on the sector.
Money4YOU: ‘The Charity Commission turns a blind eye to monitoring diversity’
Richardson from Money4YOU said: “Clearly, there is a tension between the severity of these dire results and the lack of action being taken to address the root cause. Foundations and the Charity Commission must ask themselves honestly why so little progress has been achieved in so many years.
“We believe there's a clear answer: failures of leadership. By choosing not to monitor diversity in our sector, the Charity Commission turns a blind eye and renders itself a bystander to structural inequality—present without taking action. To be a bystander is not a neutral position, but one that perpetuates and actively encourages harm.
“FPR, funded by the very foundations that it reports on, is a private solution to what is quite obviously a public problem. If grant-makers used their power to back collective actions like our campaign, instead of investing in their own voluntary, self-reporting initiatives, we might produce consensus-driven change instead of a 105-page PDF.
“In 2017, the Commission failed to take its own recommendation to collect and publish aggregated diversity data for charities. It is not a coincidence that we now find ourselves without adequate diversity amongst foundations, who also control the very means of holding themselves accountable.”
The Commission responded that the suggestion this report had been "overlooked" was "misleading" as it published a response to it in 2017.
Richardson continued: “For over a year now, we have been calling on the Charity Commission to add diversity data to the register of charities, just as the FCA and Cabinet Office report on listed companies and civil servants.
“Leadership is often quite simply stepping forward first. The fact that over a dozen foundations have taken it upon themselves to collect and publish their own regulatory data on equalities is a damning indictment of the Charity Commission’s lack of leadership and performance. We deserve, and expect, better.
“This reinforces a question that we and others have asked for a long while: is a Charity Commission that does not give diversity the priority it deserves truly representative of the sector, or still fit for purpose, in 21st century Britain?”
Charity Commission: ‘We do not accept these assertions’
A Charity Commission spokesperson responded: “We do not accept Money4U’s assertions. We have been engaging with stakeholders from across the charity sector to support and engage with opportunities and schemes to increase diversity of trustees and to understand what barriers are having an impact.
“Sector-led transparency initiatives like the Foundation Practice rating report should be welcomed. We are also working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and other partners in the sector to expand the range of data available to policymakers and others about the voluntary sector.
“Having a diverse group of people on boards, with different backgrounds and experiences helps charities make better and more informed decisions and contributes to good governance. We also want to address any barriers that exist to people from all backgrounds joining the 700,000 brilliant trustees who are leading charities today, and we will continue to take targeted and meaningful action where we are best placed to do so.”
The regulator said it does not believe that annual returns are the right place to collect diversity data and is considering alternatives.
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