We will have to rebuild public trust, regulator tells charities

THE recent scandals surrounding charities mean that the public is now no more likely to trust them than a “stranger in the street”, the head of the regulator has said.

Baroness Stowell of Beeston, the chairman of the Charity Commission, said charities could no longer expect to receive the “benefit of the doubt” because the public had “evidence to prove their suspicions”.

Picking out the sex scandal that rocked the sector earlier this year after Oxfam aid workers were found to have been using prostitutes, as well as complaints over the high salaries paid to charity leaders, she said that people were “appalled” and felt “betrayed”.

Addressing the National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ annual conference in London, Lady Stowell admitted that “we have a problem” because some charities registered with the commission “are no longer trusted automatically by the public”.

“That means all charities can no longer expect the public to give them the benefit of the doubt,” she said.

“That’s not just my opinion. It’s the conclusion of extensive, independent research, the latest of which is under way right now and will be published later this year. I have seen some early findings. And they are sobering. They show that people now trust charities no more than they trust the average stranger they meet on the street.”

The research, in its early stages, is the commission’s own biannual review. The latest figures, from 2016, show that the overall level of trust and confidence in charities had already fallen to an all-time low.

She said that the sector now needed to work hard to rebuild trust by being crystal clear about its aims. “Yes, we have a problem. But I am confident that we also have the solution,” she concluded.