The former chief executive of a religious charity that operated a television channel has agreed not to hold a senior position in the sector for 10 years after a critical inquiry report.
The Charity Commission published an inquiry report today on Sikh Channel Community Broadcasting Company Limited and concluded that the former trustees had not sufficiently overseen the actions of the charity’s then-CEO.
It found that the former trustees failed to handle a clear conflict of interest when the CEO, who was also a trustee at the time, appointed himself to the role without an open recruitment process.
The commission also found that the trustees were all family members of the CEO, and they failed to conduct sufficient control and oversight of his actions, which led to breaches of charity law.
The CEO set himself an unauthorised, yearly salary of £40,000, the inquiry found, and the charity made a bank transfer of £654 to a private company owned and directed by him.
Misleading fundraising partnership
The charity, which aimed to advance the knowledge of the Sikh faith, had a fundraising partnership with an unregistered organisation Sikh Youth UK, whose organisers were separately found guilty of charity fraud.
The commission found that Sikh Channel Community Broadcasting Company Limited ran the fundraiser and misled the public by not stating that 40% of the donations would be kept by the charity for its general expenditure.
Instead, it stated that the money raised was for Sikh Youth UK support workers.
The regulator concluded that former trustees’ failure to conduct due diligence on Sikh Youth UK, their failure to monitor the use of the charity’s funds and the misleading nature of the fundraising appeal were all acts of misconduct and/or mismanagement by the former trustees.
Over the course of the statutory inquiry, which the commission opened in 2019, a new board of trustees was appointed to the charity.
The new board decided to dissolve the charity in 2022.
‘A cautionary tale’
Joshua Farbridge, head of compliance visits and inspections of the commission said: “Our findings serve as a cautionary tale against allowing any one person to dominate and assume control of a charity.
“In this case, the trustees failed in their duty to oversee and manage the actions of the CEO, resulting in significant failures in the charity’s administration and governance.
“As a result of our intervention, and the identified misconduct and/or mismanagement, the CEO has committed to refraining from acting as a trustee of a charity for ten years.”
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