Trustees

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with the noble Baroness. There are already about 85,000 young charity trustees aged between 16 and 34 out of the 1 million trustees in the UK, but more can be done. The past focus of Trustees’ Week has been to encourage more young people to take up charity trustee positions. The Charity Commission also produces best practice guidance for charities on recruitment and detailed guidance on how to involve young people in running a charity. I agree with the noble Baroness on diversity. At the moment it is roughly 50:50 between men and women, but more can be done as far as ethnic communities are concerned.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016 gives the Charity Commission extensive powers to disqualify people from acting as trustees. Will the Government monitor the commission’s exercise of those powers and, in particular, the effect on charities which exist to rehabilitate offenders?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Baroness is quite right that that Act gave the Charity Commission more extensive powers, and the things she mentioned are monitored. The commission opened 100 statutory inquiries and used its legal powers more than 1,000 times in 2014-15, compared with 15 statutory inquiries and 200 uses of legal powers in the previous year, so it was already doing more, but I take note of what the noble Baroness says about the things that should be monitored.