The Charity Commission removed more than 5,000 voluntary organisations from its register last financial year, according to the regulator’s annual report.
According to the report, the regulator recorded significant declines in the number of whistleblowing and serious incident reports during 2021-22.
Commission chief executive Helen Stephenson said the regulator had sought to reach more trustees through its guidance during the year and invested in new software for its contact centre, which answered 74,878 calls in 2021-22.
Up-tick in charities removed from register
In the year to March 2022, the Commission removed 5,252 charities from the register, compared to 3,316 in the previous 12 months.
As of 31 March, there were 169,029 registered charities with a combined income of £83.8bn in England and Wales, down from 169,862 organisations with a combined income of £84.1bn a year earlier.
During 2021-22, the Commission received 8,005 applications (8,354 in 2020-21) to register a charity, just over half (52%) of which were successful (60% in 2020-21), which the regulator said demonstrated that its processes “involve robust scrutiny”.
Whistleblowing and serious incident reports decline
In partnership with whistleblowing charity Protect, the Commission received 287 whistleblowing reports in 2021-22, compared to 434 in 2020-21.
During the year period it assessed 3,451 new serious incident reports, which marks a 20% reduction compared with 2020-21.
The decline is partly due to a significant reduction in serious incidents related specifically to the Covid-19 pandemic, from 425 in 2020-21 to just 19 in 2021-22. The most common issue for these was related to health implications for charity staff members.
