How good is your governance?

Recent events in the charity sector have highlighted public concern about the governance of charities, particularly those in receipt of public funding. Generally, charities are well run and deservedly have the support of grant-giving bodies, volunteers and the public, but when things go wrong this can lead to lasting damage to their reputation. In significant cases, this threatens to undermine public confidence in the role of charities generally.

Due to the seriousness of this issue, the Charity Commission’s Wales office has recently launched an initiative designed to raise awareness of the risks that poor governance poses for the sector, to encourage charities to review their standards of governance and, where necessary, to take steps to improve them.

Initially, the Commission is contacting all charities in Wales with an income over £100,000 and asking those charities to complete a questionnaire in which they evaluate their governance in relation to 'Good governance: A code for the third sector in Wales' (PDF), which WCVA published in May this year.

If you are one of the charities in Wales with an income over £100,000, we would encourage you to complete and return the questionnaire to the Charity Commission, by their deadline of Sunday 15 July 2012. After this date the Commission plan to visit a sample of charities to review their governance, and because of the importance of this issue these visits will include charities that have not returned the questionnaire.  

If you would like help and advice on governance, please call us on (029) 2048 5722.