The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has said its decision-making processes will improve as a new scheme is introduced.
On Friday, the Department for Communities of Northern Ireland published the Scheme of Delegation, which will give more power to commission staff and allow certain decisions to be delegated to them.
It will empower staff to interact with charity trustees in a “different, more efficient and enabling way”.
The commission’s board of commissioners will now review the scheme in full and formally adopt it in their next meeting.
Previous system ‘led to delays’
Under the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008, all commission decisions had to be made by commissioners. Staff could not make decisions themselves but could only assist by gathering information and advising commissioners.
The seven commissioners, who are not full-time, were responsible for making all casework, enquiries, compliance and registration decisions and orders through a committee.
This resulted in delays and a reduced volume of decisions being made, the regulator has said.
The new scheme is an amendment that aims to ease the administrative burden on the commission and fasten the decision-making process and allow charities to receive quicker responses to casework and registration applications.
However, some decision-making calls are still exclusive to the commissioners.
These include certain decisions relating to investigations into charities, the power to open a statutory inquiry and decisions on publishing statutory inquiry reports.
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