Regulation necessary for good governance

The international guests also agreed a national public register aided transparency, accountability and public confidence in the sector, and that a regulator must be independent.

At a forum hosted by the Australian Charity Law Association in Sydney, Chief Executive of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator Mr David Robb described regulation as the price the sector and public paid to ensure good governance, while Canadian Director General of the Charities Directorate Cathy Hawara said her service also focused on charities’ governance as experience showed most charities wanted to do the right thing and were more likely to comply.

Each of the visiting countries spoke of the value of a public register in aiding sector confidence, while many acknowledged Australia’s effort to reduce red tape for the sector. New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs also said it was looking to adopt some of the methods used by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) and the UK’s HMRC said it was working with the Charity Commission of England and Wales to create a cohesive charity regulation process similar to the ACNC and Australian Tax Office.

“A huge exploration of practice in other places around the world led to the establishment of the ACNC 15 months ago. Gatherings such as this week’s International Charity Regulators Meeting, and today’s sector forum, allow for robust discussion for anyone involved in charity regulation, regardless of where they are in the world, “says Ms Susan Pascoe AM, Commissioner ACNC.

“While there are a number of different models of charity regulation within common law countries, we face similar issues which were discussed, from compliance, wealth accumulation and how expenditure can be measured, to social enterprise and red tape reduction.

“The participation of revenue agencies from Australia and overseas in the meeting also provided an important perspective as to how charity regulation can, and does, work in other common law jurisdictions.”

Ms Pascoe said the ACNC was pleased to see more than 25,000 of an estimated 30,000 charities lodged their Annual Information Statement by 31 March – the first reporting date for the national register that charities now need to comply with.

“We have also been pleased with the level of sector support when dealing with compliance issues within the sector. In our first 12 months we had 500 complaints which resulted in around 200 investigations. The commission received an extraordinary level of cooperation from charities when issues where brought to their attention, regardless of whether their actions had been one of ignorance or indeed wilful wrong doing.”

Representatives from regulators and revenue agencies from Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Scotland, England and Wales were present at the meeting.

Sarah Harding

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