Large charities have been “remarkably and worryingly slow” to respond to criticism of their fundraising, and to apologise for unacceptable practices, the incoming chair of the Fundraising Standards Board has said.

Andrew Hind, a former chief executive of the Charity Commission, will today take up his post at the FRSB, the regulator of the fundraising sector.

His organisation, and the wider fundraising sector, have faced pressure in the media and Parliament following a series of critical articles about fundraising, particularly in the Daily Mail.

In an interview with Civil Society News, Hind said he felt that large charities had only apologised in public because they were faced with a hearing of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, a Commons committee charged with scrutinising charitable regulation.

Hind himself also gave evidence to the committee, along with representatives from the Institute of Fundraising and the Public Fundraising Association.

He said the values which charities applied to their front-line activities had not always been applied to fundraising, and that “unacceptable practices” had taken place as a result. But he said charities had been slow to accept that fact.

“Charities have been remarkably and worryingly slow to put their heads above the parapet and say ‘we apologies for the fact that some of these unacceptable activities have taken place’,” he said.

“It was really only the pressure of the select committee last week that drew out apologies from 17 chief executives in an article in the Sunday Times, and the verbal apologies of the four giving evidence.”

He said chief executives should have acted much earlier in the summer.

“At the committee hearing the chief executives were saying the values of their organisations need to run through everything they do,” he said. “One of the solutions to the problem is identifying why these values – which are non-negotiable in terms of their front line services – were either interpreted differently or put to one side when it came to the fundraising activity.”

Not enough involvement from trustees

Hind said that charities’ trustee boards in particular had been silent on the fundraising crisis, and need to be much more closely involved in providing support and scrutiny for the fundraising function.

“I’m not sure many trustees are on the public record as having said anything,” he said. “I’m willing to be corrected on that point, but it’s quite remarkable if it’s the case.”

He said trustees should “engage with their senior executive team to discuss what’s going on in their name in the fundraising arena”.

“Every board is engaged in charities’ service delivery, their campaigning and their communications,” he said. “The same has to be the case for fundraising.

“Why do we never see a board sub-committee called the fundraising sub-committee? One or two big charities have introduced them, but surely it should be like the audit committee or the finance committee.

“I’m certainly not saying there should be a clause requiring it in the Charities Bill, but it should be something boards give serious consideration to.”

Hind said the FRSB itself had focused on chief executives in the past, and should put greater emphasis on communicating with trustees.

Fundraising could need a regulator five times the size of current FRSB

Hind also reiterated his belief, previously expressed at the PACAC meeting, that the Institute of Fundraising should be stripped of the responsibility for setting the Code of Fundraising Practice, which the FRSB enforces.

He said it should be set by an independent body and that the FRSB should be able to ask for changes in the Code. He said that fundraisers should remain involved in setting the Code.

Hind also said that the FRSB had been asked to regulate fundraising without the resources it needed to do so, and that a far larger operation would be needed to carry out regulation in the future.

At present Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, is carrying out a review of fundraising regulation, and is likely to recommend either the creation of a new regulator, or significant changes in the operating model of the FRSB.

Charities, politicians and Hind himself have all called for all fundraising charities to become members of the FRSB, and to be required to have regard to its rulings. Hind has also said the FRSB should proactively audit charities rather than waiting for complaints.

At the moment, Hind says, FRSB has six employees, but it is likely that any regulator asked to enforce a new, stricter regulatory regime would need at least 20 to 30 staff.

• Andrew Hind is the outgoing editor of Charity Finance magazine, the sister title of Civil Society News. He gave this interview in his capacity as chair of the FRSB. The full interview will be published shortly.