Complaints over abuse soaring at charities in UK

BRITAIN’S charities are facing soaring numbers of complaints of abuse and mistreatment.

A total of 5,730 ‘serious incidents’ – the majority concerning the safeguarding of vulnerable people, including sex cases – were reported to the Charity Commission in 2019-20.

This is the equivalent of 15 incidents every day, and represents a 47 per cent increase on the year before, according to the watchdog’s annual report. In 2018-19 there were 3,895 serious incidents.

Safeguarding incidents are those which have ‘resulted in or risk significant harm to beneficiaries and other people who come into contact with the charity’. They can include serious sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment complaints, as well as cases of neglect, bullying or racial discrimination.

Britain’s foreign aid charities have been mired in a sex abuse crisis since it emerged that Oxfam workers had used prostitutes during a humanitarian crisis in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake there.

Earlier this week, the Daily Mail revealed that aid charities made 452 incident reports relating to safeguarding, of which three in five related to sex cases.

But today’s revelations suggest the problem is much more widespread among charities than previously thought – and is also a serious problem outside the aid sector. In 2019-20 there were 3,411 safeguarding incidents reported across the sector – nearly 60 per cent of the total.

The most common type of harm reported is ‘abuse and mistreatment’, the watchdog said. This includes sex cases but the report did not reveal the proportion. Other serious incidents included 897 reports of fraud and 43 claims that charity staff were linked to terrorism or extremism.

The commission’s annual report for 2019-20 said the ‘abuse and mistreatment of people’ remained the most prominent threats in the charity sector.

It also revealed the number of whistleblowers breaking cover to speak out about practices at their charities soared by a third to 247.

The commission has used its regulatory powers against charities 1,962 times – up 5 per cent in a year. It has concluded 181 statutory inquiries into charities – up 17 per cent on the year before.

The Charity Commission would not reveal which charities had sent in the most incident reports, but recently the watchdog has investigated serious failings at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, where children were found to be ‘at risk of harm’.

Helen Stephenson, the watchdog’s chief executive, said: ‘We have seen grave governance failings in some household name charities. If charities fail to keep people safe, we will not hesitate to take action.’