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

Stephen Lloyd Awards – Championing Bright Ideas and Innovative Solutions

Do you have big ambitions? Keen to make change happen? The 2024 Stephen Lloyd Awards have just opened for entries! Give your idea a chance to thrive and apply for funding and support. Entrants with an early-stage project addressing a social or environmental problem in an innovative manner are invited to apply before 5 April 2024. The Awards seek entries from charities, social enterprises and individuals with a unique and scalable approach to creating positive social impact. Winners receive funding of £25,000 each, along with an opportunity to receive valuable pro bono support from experts in the charity and social enterprise sector. For full details on the application process and how to apply, please visit www.stephenlloydawards.org or email Mona Rahman at info@stephenlloydawards.org.

(The Stephen Lloyd Awards are an initiative of the Bates Wells Foundation, charity reg. number 1150321)

Charities Act 2022

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has confirmed that the third instalment of changes under the Charities Act 2022 will come into force this week on Thursday 7 March 2024 (with section 24 and Schedule 1 coming into force on 19 May 2025). See the Charities Act 2022 implementation page. As a reminder, this set of changes includes:

  • A statutory power to permit changes to governing documents.
  • Provisions relating to selling, leasing or disposal of charity land.
  • Rules that will permit most gifts to charities that merge to take effect as gifts to the charity they have merged with.
  • Provisions allowing the Charity Commission to authorise trustees to receive or retain payment for work completed for the charity.
  • Provisions permitting the Charity Commission to confirm defective or potentially defective trustee appointments.

Bates Wells senior associate, Lucy Rhodes, explains more about the changes here. So far, the Commission has just published short summaries of these changes here. More detailed updated guidance on topics affected by the changes will be published by the Commission on Thursday when the changes come into effect.

Charity Commission

See above under Charities Act 2022.

New guidance on the acceptance, refusal and return of donations

The Commission has published long awaited guidance, Accepting, refusing and returning donations to your charity.

In the accompanying government announcement, Charity Commission chair, Orlando Fraser, says, "When charities are offered a donation, the law is clear that their starting point should be to accept unless there is very good reason not to. I hope this guidance will empower trustees to feel able to make the choice that's right for them when faced with a tough decision. It has been designed to offer clarity and support as they navigate what can be tricky territory. As a proportionate regulator, we will not generally get involved, though may do so if trustees cannot evidence sound judgement and a considered process for their decision."

Bates Wells' Hannah Lyons comments, "Overall, the guidance is good news and should reduce red tape for charities. The Charity Commission's change of position around returning donations is however unexpected given its previous public statements and our experience in helping charities in this area and we'd like to see some areas ironed out in future versions of the guidance. You can see Bates Wells' full briefing on the new guidance here."

Charity law cases

In Re P (Statutory Will) (2024 EWCOP 12) the England and Wales Court of Protection has ruled that unidentified charities who were to benefit from a residuary gift in a statutory will must be notified when the will is changed. A summary of the case has been published on STEP's website.

Sanctions

The Treasury Committee has launched an inquiry into the effectiveness of financial sanctions on Russia. The call for evidence includes anything relating to mitigation of unintended consequences of financial sanctions. Charities impacted by the sanctions may want to submit evidence of how the sanctions regime applies to charities in relation to receiving or returning donations. The deadline for submissions is 28 March 2024.

Spring Budget

Charity Finance Group has published its submission to the Chancellor ahead of the budget.

Sector General

A new report published by think tank Pro Bono Economics and Nottingham Trent University states that local government funding for charities in England fell by 23% between 2009/10 and 2020/21. This is equivalent to a £13.2 billion reduction in council funds to charities since 2010. See also this Civil Society Article.

A survey by NCVO has found that almost nine in ten charities that deliver public services are subsidising their grants and contracts, with most considering withdrawing them. Moreover, 73% of charities who responded to the survey said that they could not meet demand for the services they funded to deliver. See here for commentary from Civil Society.

Civil Society report that NCVO has said its warning to the Treasury last year that charities face a "crisis" due to public service underfunding "has gone unheard." This follows NCVO's letter in November that urged chancellor Jeremy Hunt to address "continued underfunding of contracts and grants" which is "putting many charities at crisis point."

Climate change and environment

The government has announced a new International Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management in the Circular Economy. This will be supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and will formally open in April 2024. It will comprise University College London, University of Exeter, Brunel University London, Swansea University and British Geological Survey which will research sustainable approaches in areas such as metals, construction and critical minerals.

Also see below under International development.

Diversity and inclusion

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has published a guide on neuroinclusion at work.

Also see below under Health and social care.

Fundraising

See above under Charity Commission, new guidance on accepting, refusing and returning donations.

Philanthropy

Fozia Irfan OBE has published her new report, Transformative Philanthropy: A manual for social change, in which she advocates building a new model of philanthropy to catalyse social change in the UK. You can also watch a recording of the launch event. As a taster, Fozia says, "Can philanthropy in the UK do better? This is the question I went to the US with on a Churchill Fellowship, and I returned with the answer: that we have no choice, we must. We absolutely must."

Minister Stuart Andrew spoke at the Beacon Philanthropy and Impact Forum about the government's efforts to enable philanthropy. He mentioned areas we have previously covered, such as philanthropy training for financial advisors & the CFA Institute's Certificate in Impact Investing, along with development of regional level philanthropy through networks and knowledge sharing.

Data protection

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has ordered a charity to stop sending unsolicited marketing texts to people without their consent. Penny Appeal, based in Wakefield, sent more than 460,000 unsolicited texts over a ten-day period to 52,000 people who had never provided their consent, or who had clearly opted out. The texts were sent between April and May 2022 to coincide with Ramadan, encouraging people on a daily basis to donate to the charity's appeals. This resulted in 354 complaints, with complainants reporting their requests to opt out were ignored and described the texts as "intrusive", "unwanted," and often received late at night. The ICO's investigation found that the charity had created a new database where requests to opt out were not recorded and messages were sent to anyone who had interacted with the charity in the last five years. The ICO has now issued an Enforcement Notice, ordering Penny Appeal to stop sending marketing communications without consent within 30 days. Bates Wells' Hannah Lyons comments, "This case demonstrates how important it is for charities to have the correct direct marketing consents in place. Penny Appeal was subject to a Fundraising Regulator investigator investigation for the same issues back in 2022 and so it also shows how non-compliance with fundraising rules can lead to multiple regulators getting involved. It is also interesting that the ICO decided to issue an enforcement notice rather than a fine, which seems to be part of their wider enforcement strategy of not taking funds away from public bodies or good causes. That's not to say that they would not issue fines to charities for significant breaches in the future."

The ICO has released new guidance to give employers more certainty about sharing their workers' personal details in a mental health emergency.

The ICO has reprimanded West Midlands Police after it repeatedly mixed up two people's personal information. They had the same name and date of birth. The mix-up resulted in errors such as officers attending the wrong address when attempting to find someone regarding serious safeguarding concerns. The errors happened throughout 2020 – 2022 and the force failed to rectify the error quickly enough and stop the inaccurate linking reoccurring. They also did not carry out regular data protection training or do enough to make employees aware of their responsibilities to report inaccurate personal information.

The ICO has issued an enforcement notice and a warning to the Home Office after it found that the Home Office's pilot of GPS electronic monitoring of migrants breached UK data protection law. The concerns were initially raised by Privacy International. Given the highly intrusive nature of tracking people, a strong justification is needed, and the Home Office had failed to provide this. It had also failed to assess the potential impact on this vulnerable population, such as providing clear information to them about why it was needed.

The ICO is also working on improving access to personal records, for people who experienced the care system growing up. They have launched a survey for people to share their experiences of trying to access records and also written this blog about the work they are doing with Scottish local authorities to improve their responses to requests for records.

AI

The February All-Parliamentary Group on Charities and Volunteering discussed "Embracing AI". You can see the topics discussed in the minutes of the group's meeting downloadable from this NCVO page.

Modern Slavery Act 2015

The House of Lords Committee on the Modern Slavery Act has published a call for written evidence for its inquiry into the impact and effectiveness of the Act. The inquiry will consider how the Act's provisions have been implemented, how it has been impacted by recent political developments and whether it requires improvement. The Committee is requesting written submissions (by 27 March 2024) on certain topics including the efficacy of key provisions of the Act. The Committee will report by 30 November 2024.

Anti-terrorism (Prevent)

This announcement gives an update on the government's progress towards implementing the recommendations from the Independent Review of Prevent (the programme to prevent people from being radicalised into terrorism).

Health and social care

See final item under Data protection above.

The Department for Work and Pensions has published the outcome of the Buckland Autism Employment Review, which was launched in April 2023. In his report, Sir Robert Buckland KC MP has made a number of recommendations designed to improve the employment prospects of people with autism.

Social Housing

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has set out its new standards for social housing landlords. These changes are part of the Social Housing Regulation Act and will come into effect on 1 April 2024. They are designed to protect tenants and improve landlord service provision. The RSH will have new enforcement powers to hold landlords to account. The government press release contains details of a pack of information for the social housing sector on the changes.

Social enterprise

Pioneers Post has published the WISE100 Women in Social Enterprise 2024. This 'Top 100 List' and the '30 Ones to Watch' list aim to recognise the most influential women in social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business.

Social Enterprise UK has published its Social Enterprise Barometer: Expectations for 2024. The report suggests that social enterprise expectations for the year are positive overall. For example, 55% expect turnover growth and a significant majority expect demand for their goods and services to rise (press release).

The FCA has updated its webpage for Annual returns and accounts: mutual societies to confirm that it will no longer accept accounts submissions by email from 31 March, but will continue to accept submissions through the Mutuals Society Portal or by post.

Faith based organisations

This government announcement details funding which will be given to the Community Security Trust (CST), an organisation established to protect Jewish community sites. It will total £70 million and take the funding through to 2028. The CST will distribute this to Jewish educational sites, community centres and synagogues to be used towards protective security measures, such as security guards.

International development

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has published a rapid review of the UK's aid commitment to international climate financing (ICF). The UK has committed to spend £11.6 billion in ICF in the 5 years to 2025-26. The review has found that this commitment will be challenging given stretched resources and highlighted how the government had moved the goalposts by changing the way meeting the target is calculated. This included reclassifying existing spend as ICF, amounting to £1.724 billion, which is not new additional funding for recipient countries. The ICAI's recommendations include the government publishing a detailed plan setting out how much of the remaining spend will be through which channels (multilateral, bilateral, development capital, research and development). The government's response is due in April 2024. Bond has commented on the review here.

Education

General

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced extra funding for early support hubs to help children and young people receive better mental health support across the country. 24 hubs will receive a share of almost £8 million to help young people get support with their mental health at an earlier stage.

Ofsted has confirmed plans for inspecting supported accommodation and has published new guidance for inspecting providers of supported accommodation for looked after children and care leavers aged 16 to 17. These inspections will start in September 2024 rather than the previously announced April 2024.

Schools

The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed in this press release that every state school in England will now need to share their daily attendance registers with the DfE, councils and trusts. The data collected will be used to help schools support children displaying worrying trends of persistent absence or those in danger of becoming missing in education. It will be accessible to schools, trusts and councils via an interactive secure data dashboard to provide an understanding of their local and national attendance position.

The DfE has published new guidance to help schools and academy trusts understand how to respond to requests for wraparound or holiday childcare from parents and carers and also from childcare providers wanting to use the school's facilities for wraparound or holiday provision. Schools Week has commented on it in this article.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a report on school funding and costs in England over time. They have calculated that on current projections, the purchasing power of school budgets will be 5% below 2010 levels in 2024 and to compensate for this loss an extra £3.2 billion in extra funding would be needed. Moreover, funding for schools in England would need to rise by £700 million above existing plans for 2024-25 to allow them to meet expected cost rises.

Further Education

Minister Robert Halfon delivered a speech at the Annual Apprenticeship Conference 2024, where he highlighted the need to integrate apprenticeships into education, the significance and impact of the Apprenticeship Levy and the expansion of degree-level apprenticeships.

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