Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector.

Charity Commission

Charity trustee quiz

The Commission has launched an interactive quiz for trustees to test their knowledge.

Sector General

On 5th December NPC is hosting an event "How can charities centre lived experience?" at which it will launch a new Centring Lived Experience guide. More details and sign up here.

Climate change and environment

The Government and Environment Agency has announced that £25 million will be invested in projects that use nature to protect communities from flooding. The new funding is available to environmental non-governmental organisations, businesses, farmers, catchment partnerships, flood risk management authorities and community groups. Expressions of interest are open now and will close on 10 November 2023, with projects being delivered 2024-2027.

Diversity and inclusion

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has updated its technical guidance for English and Scottish schools. The guidance outlines school obligations related to discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 – the updates reflect concerns about sex and gender reassignment. Bates Wells senior associate, Mindy Jhittay, comments, "The previous guidance indicated that not using a pupil's preferred name and pronouns would amount to direct discrimination, but the updated guidance has removed this, and it also states that schools must provide single sex toilets and changing rooms. The updated version still notes that a child can have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but makes it harder for such a child to claim direct discrimination."

The updated Guidance can be found here: for English schools and Scottish schools. It follows recent NHS guidance on how to support children with gender-related questions or distress in education settings and anticipates long awaited guidance from DfE. Bates Wells Head of Education, Jean Tsang, adds, "School leaders are agreed that NHS guidance and DfE guidance needs to be aligned as this is a very tricky area for everyone to navigate."

The Directory of Social Change has highlighted some sources of grant funding which are available to the LGBTQ+ community.

Fundraising

See below under Advertising and under Travel law.

Data protection

Recent fines

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued fines totalling £590,000 to five companies for making unwanted marketing calls which targeted the elderly and people with vulnerabilities. The companies were involved in selling insurance for white goods and collectively made 1.9 million nuisance calls.

Transferring data between the UK and US

The government has published the Data Protection (Adequacy) (United States of America) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/1028) which comes into force on 12 October. The Regulations authorise the US as providing an adequate level of protection for data transfer purposes where the transfer is to an organisation in the US listed on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF) as participating in the UK Extension to the DPF. Any transfer of personal data covered by the UK GDPR will then be subject to the principles of the DPF. The government has also published supporting documents including a factsheet for UK organisations and an explainer which provide more detail and some background on the US Executive Order 14086 which now designates the UK as a qualifying state allowing all UK individuals whose personal data has been transferred to the US under any transfer mechanisms (not just the UK-US data bridge) access to the redress mechanism if they believe that their personal data has been accessed unlawfully by US authorities for national security purposes. Organisations relying on the UK-US data bridge will need to ensure that the data importer is properly listed as participating in the DPF as not all organisations are eligible (for example banking, insurance and telecoms cannot participate). You can use the search function here to check if a data importer is listed as participating in the DPF.

Freedom of information

The ICO has issued an enforcement notice to City of York Council relating to a backlog of 261 freedom of information requests from 2021-2023. The council must also provide an action plan of how it plans to improve its performance, with a 'lessons learned' exercise examining the root causes of the delay. If the council fails to meet the terms of the enforcement notice it could be found in contempt.

AI

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced the launch of a pilot advisory service called the AI and Digital Hub, to be operated by a newly created function within the Digital Regulation and Co-operation Forum, a multi-regulatory forum made up of the ICO, Ofcom, the Competition and Markets Authority, and the Financial Conduct Authority. The pilot will commence in the first half of 2024 and will run for 12 months. During the pilot, organisations will be able to seek tailored advice on whether their developments and ideas comply with regulatory requirements for digital technology and AI. Government has also published a number of case studies to show how AI assurance techniques can be applied to assist organisations in demonstrating compliance with the principles set out in the AI regulation white paper.

People Management reports a recent survey has revealed only 7 per cent of UK employees received AI training in the last year.

Advertising

The ASA has upheld a complaint made about a national press ad in the Daily Mail for People's Postcode Lottery. It has found that it breached the CAP Code requirement that marketing communications must not suggest that participating in a lottery could be a solution to financial concerns.

Travel law

The government has announced a consultation on UK-based domestic package travel regulations. We will be keeping an eye on this consultation and any proposed changes to the regulations, to see if there will be any impact on charities providing UK based trips, including challenge events.

Online Safety Bill

Parliament has announced that the Online Safety Bill has completed its passage through Parliament, meaning that the text has been agreed by both Houses. The Bill will be granted Royal Assent in the next few weeks. The Bill is intended to make the internet a safer place, particularly by imposing a duty of care on services such as social media providers and search engines to prevent the proliferation of illegal content and activity online. In order for the Online Safety Act (as it will be) to become fully operational, the Secretary of State must make secondary legislation and Ofcom must publish a number of codes of practice. Ofcom has announced that it will consult on the first set of standards to be met by tech firms to tackle illegal online harms very soon after Royal Assent.

Scotland

OSCR have published a video explaining their charity inquiry process.

Northern Ireland

In an attempt to increase transparency, CCNI is rolling out a new 'traffic light display' onto the register of charities, which will indicate if a charity has submitted their annual report and accounts on time, and how many days they might be late or overdue. They have published some FAQs on the subject here.

CCNI have also updated the list of organisations it hopes to call forward for charity registration in the coming months.

Communities

The government has announced the latest funding from its Community Ownership Fund. £12.3 million will be distributed to secure the future of pubs, museums and sports clubs. Recipients include a railway preservation society, a swimming club, a theatre and four pubs. The Fund is currently open again for bids, closing on 11 October 2023.

Refugees

A new government programme, the Refugee Employability Programme has been launched and will operate for two years, with the aim of providing enhanced support to refugees and Afghans in relation to employment, English language training and integration.

Health and social care

As part of the government's children's social care strategy, 27 new local authorities are to join the 'staying close programme' which provides a package of continued support and guidance to young people leaving care. The 27 local authorities have been awarded £27 million to run the programme, taking it to a total of 47 local authorities. The government has also launched a consultation, closing on 18 December 2023, seeking feedback on the national advocacy standards and statutory guidance, with the aim of improving advocacy for children in care and care leavers.

The Department of Health and Social Care has issued a call for evidence on improving integrated commissioning in health and social care, concerning proposed changes to section 75 of the National Health Service Act 2006 (NHS Act 2006). The DHSC considers that integrated commissioning (through partnership arrangements) and pooled budgets can help to facilitate more joined-up care that benefits patients. To improve the integration of health and adult social care services, the DHSC wants partnership arrangements and pooled budgets to be used more widely.

Social investment/social impact investment

British International Investment (BII) and other development finance institutions have collaborated to form a new initiative aiming to improve responses to future health emergencies and pandemics. According to BII, the COVID-19 pandemic "exposed weaknesses in health financing", which the new initiative aims to strengthen. For more information, see the Joint Statement of Intent, Chair's Summary and Full Report.

Sport

See above under Communities.

International development

In this article, Bond discusses UK agencies renewing their commitments to improve transparency in Official Development Assistance. It highlights a working group which member organisations can join, to discuss the value of transparency and accountability for international development and humanitarian organisations.

Education

Schools

See above under Diversity and inclusion

The DfE has announced a 'workload reduction taskforce' in the latest Government attempt to reduce workloads for teachers and education leaders. The taskforce will include representatives from all 4 unions, teachers, academics and other education sector leaders. Their overall aim is reduction by 5 hours per week within 3 years.

Ofsted have published several subject reports looking at how certain subjects are being taught:

The DfE are holding a consultation on potential revisions to the National Standards for the Provision of Children's Advocacy Services and the statutory guidance on Providing Effective Advocacy Services for Children and Young People Making a Complaint under the Children Act 1989.

Further Education

The Lifelong Learning Bill has received Royal Assent, enshrining the Government's Lifelong Learning Entitlement scheme into law. With this scheme, the Government is aiming to overhaul the student finance system, giving adults from 2025 access to four years' worth of tuition loans that they can use flexibly over their working lives. See commentary from FE Week here. There is also a Government consultation calling for information on the costs and benefits of the LLE scheme.

Higher Education

The Office for Students has launched a new survey on the prevalence of sexual misconduct in English higher education institutions.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.