Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
40-49)
DAME SUZI
LEATHER, MR
ANDREW HIND,
MS ROSIE
CHAPMAN AND
MR KENNETH
DIBBLE
9 OCTOBER 2008
Q40 Paul Rowen: So if there is no
case to answer, that result is published as well?
Mr Dibble: Absolutely. It is even
more important that it is, yes.
Q41 Paul Rowen: Going back to this
issue about terrorism, you said in your letter that you have launched
your counter-terrorism strategy?
Mr Dibble: Yes.
Q42 Paul Rowen: What does that entail?
Mr Dibble: We have now published
it, and that is available and we can make it available to members
of the Committee but, broadly, it is to do with something very
serious for the regulator in those very, very few cases where
charities may be abused for terrorist purposes, and it sets out
what the Commission's position is. Generally, where those allegations
are made we will give priority to looking at those allegations,
and the way we approach this, in terms of all our work, is on
a proportionate basis, but we have broken down our responses into
three areas. We have our relationships with other regulators—the
law enforcement agencies and special services who deal with issues
of this kind—and we have a collaborative working arrangement.
We have an outreach capacity into the sector to make the sector
much more aware of the potential, in terms of the charity, for
terrorist abuse or misuse of charities either through funding,
or through personnel, or issues of that kind. We have our intervention
work where there are clearly issues. So we issue a statutory inquiry
and we engage, as a priority, in those sort of areas where it
is justified and, finally, we have a monitoring capacity where
we will look at charities where we have information from other
regulators that there is a potential at least for terrorist misuse
and we will keep them on our radar and ensure that where we need
to step in we will do. So those are the four strands of the counter-terrorism
strategy, which is available—we can send it to you.
Q43 Paul Rowen: Do you put a block
on money going abroad while that investigation is going on?
Mr Dibble: Yes, we may well do.
Where we have enough evidence to move to an investigation stage
we will certainly, in proper liaison with the law enforcement
agencies, act to stop money going overseas, yes.
Q44 Paul Flynn: Are you happy that
charities are generally not being used as funds for commercial
organisations to deliver their propaganda? I was thinking of a
campaign that the splendid charity MIND was running against an
anti-depressant drug. They were very successful at exposing the
adverse effects it had, but another charity opposed that campaign
and defended the drug. It so happens that MIND does not take a
penny from the pharmaceutical industry and the other charity takes
80% of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry. We know it
is part of the strategy of some commercial organisations—and
"big pharma" is probably the worst in this—in
that they set up charities because they know that if they are
going to get on the Today Programme and they are going to have
some kudos to the case they are making, defending possibly damaging
drugs, that will be accepted coming from a charity but it would
not be accepted or believed that it could be plausible from a
pharmaceutical organisation. Having looked at some of these cases,
I find it extremely difficult to discover where the funding comes
from in many of the charities concerned. Are you happy about the
transparency and when patient organisations and other groups are
speaking, particularly defending drugs, that we would know whether
they are acting independently as a charity or whether they are
acting as the mouth piece of "big pharma"?
Mr Dibble: I think it is a very
good question and extremely difficult to answer. Of course, independent
charities are able to, of course, enter campaigns and speak on
behalf of their beneficiaries. We set out our guidance on that
in a document Speaking Out, but the point you are raising,
I believe, is where you have what could be termed "a captive
charity", which is actually being funded from a particular
source to promote propaganda in a particular area, and we do come
across this from time to time but there has not been a case in
which we felt there was particular transparency between the funding
and the activities of the charity that we should intervene, but
I think it is an area of concern.
Q45 Paul Flynn: It is an extraordinary
coincidence that virtually all the charities that concentrate
on particular diseases are funded by pharmaceutical companies
that produce the drugs for those particular diseases, and it would
be useful, and they all will state, "We are not influenced
by the funding whatsoever", though the evidence is otherwise.
If you decided that they were specialising in diabetes or osteoporosis,
or whatever it is, that their funding should not come from the
pharmaceutical companies providing the drugs for dealing with
those diseases, it should come from elsewhere, but certainly the
voice of "big pharma" is heard nationally and in this
place through bodies that describe themselves as principally charities
when many of their activities are in the area of drug pushing.
Ms Chapman: Not a perfect answer,
but actually charities are required to provide,[5]
for any member of the public who wants to see it, a list of where
their grants are coming from. So if they are getting grants from
these organisations, it should be transparent to the public and
that should be made available on request. Admittedly you have
got to—
Q46 Chairman: I know we keep giving you
suggestions, but following up Paul's line of questioning, would
it not be possible on your new online register, where you give
this key data, actually to say, if there is a donor above a certain
percentage of the charity's income, that that should be identified
so that someone can see if this is really being funded overwhelmingly
from one source or not?
Mr Dibble: Yes.
Dame Suzi Leather: We will consider
it. Thank you for that suggestion.
Q47 Mr Walker: Back to the more mundane
stuff: staff development and diversity, because we do need to
know how you spend your money. It says under "key highlights,
"Running plain language courses for 138 staff as part of
our Stop Think Write Programme, which helps staff address
customer needs by considering language and accessibility issues".
What is that in plain English?
Mr Hind: It is not political correctness
gone mad, it is simply saying what charity trustees need, above
all, from the regulator is a response, in plain language, which
is not four or five pages of dense argument and, wherever possible,
says, yes, to what they want to do and this is how you should
do it. What this means is: before you rush out and respond to
a trustee asking the question, stop and really think about the
context in which that trustee and their charity are operating.
Put yourself in their shoes, understand their difficulties on
the ground, and then think through how you can best respond to
that and write to them, preferably by email because it is quicker.
Q48 Mr Walker: That is very sensible.
Then, another thing: "Introducing a facility for our contact
centre to provide a translation service in over 150 languages."
Is not that incredibly expensive? I do not know over 150 languages.
Mr Hind: There are many more than
150 around the world, and many of them dying out, regrettably.
We are not incurring cost until there is a demand for translation.
All that means is we have set up arrangements so that we can identify
where we could go in the event that someone comes and says to
us, "We are running a Sinhala refugee advice centre in inner
city X", it would be really helpful if the trustees of that
new group, who are all illiterate women, could have some help
in being given guidance through an adviser in their own language
and we can talk to them about it.
Q49 Mr Walker: How much have you
spent on translation services in the last financial year?
Mr Hind: I do not know the answer
to that question.
Dame Suzi Leather: We will give
you that information.[6]
I think it flows from the fact that we must be the regulator of
the most diverse group in the country, frankly—190,000 charities
doing a huge range of things, a huge range of sizes of organisations.
The trustees of all those charities have exactly the same legal
responsibilities. So I think we have a duty to help them carry
those out wherever we can.
Mr Hind: But we would like to
reassure Mr Walker, we are not being stupid about this. We are
not printing a range of guidance in 150 languages. This is purely
setting up a facility where, if it is judged sensible and helpful
to provide some guidance to an organisation in their language,
we will consider whether we should do that. We have got a responsibility,
of course, to provide parallel advice and guidance in writing,
in hard copy and in soft copy, on the web in Welsh, and that is
a very important part of our responsibility as the regulator for
England and Wales.
Dame Suzi Leather: And we have
Welsh speakers both in our Liverpool office and in our Newport
office.
Paul Flynn: Splendid.
Chairman: I think we are going to stop
at that point and go into a second half.
5 Note from witness: Error by witness-should read "actually
charities, as a matter of best practice, should provide|". Back
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