Civil Society News is bringing you a festive countdown in the run up to Christmas. On the fourth day we look back at the ten most read news stories from April to June.

The news in the second quarter of the year was dominated by the Trussell Trust being threatened with closure and a number of high profile resignations.

1. Foodbank charity, Trussell Trust, was told by someone in power that ‘the government might try to shut you down'

When he was giving evidence to the Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector in June Chris Mould, chair of the Trussell Trust, revealed that someone in power warned the charity that the “the government might try to shut you down” believing that the charity had overstepped the mark when it came to criticising government policy.

The charity then took the decision to tone down its criticisms so that the government would maintain its contact. Mould said that this decision was a response of a “positive nature”.

Mould subsequently told Civil Society News that “those in power are sidestepping their responsibility to vulnerable people”.

The extent to which charities should and do campaign politically has certainly been a hot topic this year and only the previous day a Conservative MP reported Oxfam to the Charity Commission claiming the charity’s latest campaign had gone too far.

2. Oxfam International planning to relocate its headquarters to Bangkok or Nairobi

In April Civil Society News learned that Oxfam International, which coordinates and provides strategic leadership for joint campaigns and advocacy work between the independent Oxfam affiliates, including Oxfam GB, was drawing up plans to relocate its headquarters as part of wider objective to devolve power from the northern to the southern hemisphere.

Oxfam International has been based in Oxford since it was established in 1995 and currently has around 40 members of staff. It already has a number of advocacy offices around the world including in Brussels and New York.

Matt Grainger, head of media, emphasised that the move was “not a cost-cutting exercise” but that the charity was “making a concerted effort to devolve power and capacity away from the North and to the South”.

3. Peterborough Prison social impact bond pilot will be replaced by 'alternative arrangement' but the government continues to role out SIBs

The Ministry of Justice decided that the third tranche of a pilot social impact bond project at Peterborough Prison will be replaced an “alternative funding arrangement” because it is not compatible with funding arrangements for the Transforming Rehabilitation project due to launch in 2015.

The project was the first example of the SIB, a type of payment-by-results contract where investors provide a not-for-profit organisation with capital to carry out interventions. The government pays out if the interventions are successful. The investors make a profit if the project works, and lose money if it does not.

Later in the year MoJ results revealed that the project had met its targets for reducing reoffending but that it has not yet delivered strong enough results to trigger a payment to investors.

In April the Department for International Development announced it was launching the first development impact bond - an international version of the social impact bond.

And In May the Cabinet Office has launched a new £30m package to back social impact bonds to help disadvantaged young people at risk of falling into a situation where they are not in education, employment or training.
 

4. BIG withdraws £1m grant to Big Society Network charity after Britain’s Personal Best failed to reach any of its targets

The Big Lottery Fund confirmed that the it had withdrawn a £1m grant to Big Society Newtwork for the Britain’s Personal Best project after the charity failed to hit any of its targets. Around £750,000 had already been given the charity and the funder said it wouldn’t be asking for the money to be paid back because there was no evidence that it was misspent.

Society Network Foundation, the charity parent of Big Society Network, won the £1m from BIG in May 2013 for an Olympic legacy project called Britain’s Personal Best. The project aimed to entice thousands of people to set themselves ‘personal best’ challenges, in all kinds of fields, and to raise sponsorship money for charities in the process.

The application – which was solicited by the Big Lottery Fund, so that SNF didn’t even have to compete for the funding – promised a £78,000 website and a million page views by October. It said that ten large charities, 1,500 small and medium-sized charities, plus 5,000 community groups would be signed up to play an active role in BPB by October last year.

Elsewhere it seemed that BSN chief Steve Moore had moved on, and was in the process of setting up a Magna Carta charity ahead of the document’s 800th anniversary next year.

5. Women's charity chief executive jailed for over seven years for child abuse offences

The chief executive of Southwark Muslim Women’s Association, Zafar Iqbal, was jailed for seven and a half years after being found guilty of sexual abuse against three girls under the age of 14 in June.

Southwark Muslim Women’s Association (SMWA) is a charity operating in South London that aims to improve the quality of life for Muslim women, children and elders. It received funding from Southwark Council.

A council spokesperson said when he was convicted: “We are appalled by this man's actions and we are undertaking an urgent review of Southwark Muslim Women's Association and its association with the council.”

6. Oxfam's former head of counter fraud jailed for two years for stealing almost £65,000 from the charity

In May Oxfam’s former head of counter-fraud was jailed for two years and five months for stealing nearly £65,000 from the charity while investigating misconduct by aid workers in earthquake-hit Haiti.

Edward McKenzie-Green pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to making £64,612.58 in payments from Oxfam to fictitious firms between February and December 2011.

His crimes were discovered by an internal inquiry at Oxfam into his unprofessional behaviour on leading a team of six into Haiti in 2011. Investigators discovered he had filed 17 bogus invoices from two companies over nine months.

7. RSPCA's deputy chief executive, John Grounds, steps down

There was obviously something in the air this spring, as RSPCA’s deputy chief executive, John Grounds, resigned in April, just six weeks after the chief executive, Gavin Grant, resigned on health grounds.

Grounds is now a strategic marketing and communications consultant. Grant has become a town councillor in Malmesbury after winning a by-election.

The RSPCA is still in the process of recruiting a chief executive.

Elsewhere, after 18 months as chief executive of the Small Charities Coaltion Alex Swallow resigned as chief executive after he and the trustees agreed that the organisation could no longer afford to pay him. And in May Ben Kernighan quit as the chief executive of the National Union of Students after ten months in the role.

8. Charity Commission investigating Jehovah's Witness charity that has been accused of letting paedophile quiz victims

In May the Charity Commission warned that it had “ongoing serious concerns” about a religious charity accused of organising a meeting where a convicted paedophile was allowed to interrogate his victims.

The next month the regulator opened a statutory inquiry into the Watch Tower Bible and Society of Britain, the national body of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Manchester New Moston Congregation, where the incident is reported to have taken place, to investigate whether the charities have adequate safeguarding procedures in place.

Both charities have said that they will go to the Charity Tribunal to challenge the regulator’s decision to open inquiries.

9. NCVO tells charities to prominently publish details of senior pay

The key recommendation of NCVO’s report into senior executive pay was that charities should make details of their senior executives’ pay clearly available on their website, no more than two clicks from their homepage. The umbrella body also recommended that large charities consider publishing remuneration ratios between the highest and median salary.

NCVO launched the inquiry after a number of mainstream media stories were published in the summer of 2013, notably by The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail, highlighting charity chief executive pay.

The inquiry also looked at the use of bonus payments, finding that it appeared very few charities appear to pay bonuses to their staff. The panel says it should not normally be necessary to incentivise senior staff through an explicit incentive bonus payment.

10. Cabinet Office fund may have cost the sector more in application costs than it received in grants

Richard Caulfield, then chief executive of Voluntary Sector North West, obtained figures on the Democratic Engagement Innovation Fund, a £4.2m fund to encourage young people to become involved in democracy, using the Freedom of Information Act.

The figures showed it received applications from 139 charitable partnerships. But it gave out grants worth only £216,000 to five organisations. The rest of the money was split equally between 363 local authorities and other public bodies.

Caulfield estimated that it would have cost more than £1,500 in staff time to make an application to the fund.