Memorandum from the Royal College of Nursing
(DCH 312)
I am writing in response to the Draft Charities
Bill Committee's call for evidence, and have outlined below the
Royal College of Nursing's comments on the draft Bill.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the UK's
largest professional association and trade union for nurses, with
over 370,000 members. The RCN works locally, nationally and internationally
to promote high standards of care and the interests of patients
and nurses, and of nursing as a profession. The RCN is a registered
charity and was granted the Royal Charter in 1928.
The RCN broadly welcomes the proposals to reform
the legislation governing charities, and we hope this will lead
to greater clarity around the regulation of the charitable sector.
We support many of the proposals to change the structure of the
Charity Commission, set up a Charities Appeal Tribunal and update
the definitions of "charity" and "charitable purpose".
However there are a number of issues which directly affect us
as a registered charity which we would like to comment on:
THE CHARITIES
COMMISSION
It is imperative that public confidence in the
Charity Commission's role as regulator of the sector is maintained.
In light of this it is our view that clause 5(3)1 should include
the aim of increasing public confidence in the Charity Commission,
as well as increasing confidence in charities themselves.
At the same time we feel that the Bill should
strike a balance between the need for regulation of the sector
and the threat of over burdensome regulation which deflects organisations
from their primary purpose, thereby decreasing their effectiveness.
The RCN strongly believes that the primary purpose of regulation
should be to combat against abuse and misuse of the charitable
function.
TRUSTEES
The RCN wholly welcomes proposals in clause
29 giving the Charity Commission the power to relieve trustees
from liability for breach of trust or duty where the trustee has
acted in an honest and reasonable manner. It is our belief that
trustees should be supported in their role wherever possible.
The RCN welcomes the Bill's statutory powers
to provide remuneration for trustees out of a charity's fund in
return for goods and services provided to the charity by the trustee
(clause 27). However we feel that the Bill should go further than
this and provide for remuneration of the chair of a charity's
governing body. Whilst we agree with the principle that trustees
should not be remunerated for their role as trustees, we believe
that in large and complex charities (such as the RCN) the chair
of the board can be a time-consuming and often arduous task, which
in our view merits remuneration. The draft Bill makes provision
to divide the current role of Chief Commissioner of the Charity
Commission into two posts, Chair and Chief Executive, both of
which are paid. A similar model is used for the board of health
trusts, and the RCN strongly believes that this process should
be extended to larger charities, many of whom have multi million
pound turnovers. Offering remuneration would make the post of
chair of the board a more attractive prospect and provide recognition
of the level of commitment many individuals devote to the role.
July 2004
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