Scandals spark public anger at UK's historic charities

A walk down a typical British high street dotted with second-hand shops testifies to the central role that charities play in the country, but a spate of grim headlines has left the sector facing a crisis of trust.

For centuries, British charities have harnessed public goodwill and the expertise of staff to help deliver care to the neediest and lobby governments of the day to support their cause.

The sector's proud achievements include helping to abolish slavery, securing religious freedoms and improving education and working conditions.

When the Duke of Wellington met activists in 1814 to discuss how to convince France to abolish the slave trade, he urged them to proceed "in our good old English fashion" of voluntary-sector agitation.

Charity began to play an even more central role in the 1980s when the market-friendly Conservative government began "outsourcing welfare" through contracts with charities, according to Paul Palmer, a charity professor at London's Cass Business School.

But a recent YouGov poll found that public trust in charity had fallen by over 10 percent since June following a series of negative news stories -- although voluntary groups still rank just below doctors and the police as the most trusted bodies in public life.

Controversies include the suicide in May of 92-year-old Olive Cook, which was blamed by her son-in-law on harassment by charities, having at one point received 267 charity letters in one month.

More recently, it was revealed that charities sold personal details of dementia sufferer Samuel Rae to conmen who tricked him out of thousands of pounds.

"It's a disgrace, absolute disgrace," Palmer told AFP. "Some fundraisers have lost their ethical compass."

- 'Stick to knitting' -

Transparency and governance also came under the microscope when high-profile children's charity Kid's Company collapsed amid concerns about its financial management, having just received £3 million ($4.6 million, four million euros) in public funds.

Critics such as author and commentator David Craig say the sector has become a "hungry monster", whose annual revenues have swollen by 30 percent since 2009 to £68.2 billion.
Each year, charities make around 13 billion money "asks", the equivalent of 200 for each person in Britain.

There are now around 385,000 charities in Britain, one for every 167 people, all competing for donations amid tightening household budgets.

Some 81 percent of local authorities have received complaints about the behaviour of "chuggers" -- fundraisers who ask for donations on the street.

The sector's reputation took another hit in 2014 when the charity regulator ruled a campaign against austerity by the anti-poverty charity Oxfam could be "misconstrued as party political campaigning".

The incident angered the right, and put the sector on a collision course with the ruling Conservatives.

Brooks Newmark -- the party's minister for civil society -- demanded that charities "stick to their knitting" and avoid politicking, provoking outrage within the voluntary sector.

Defenders say that Oxfam, and charities in general, do their job by holding authority to account.  

"They're continually a thorn in the flesh of any government," said Andrew Purkis, a former chairman of various well-known charities.

"It's their duty" to try to change the law when they are worried about their benefactors, he told AFP, adding that voluntary-sector activity had historically gone "hand-in-hand" with deeper democracy.

- Independence compromised? -

Conversely, charities seen as too close to the government because of their dependence on public funding have also found themselves as targets.

Around 27,000 charities are now dependent on the taxpayer for more than 75 per cent of their income, according to Chris Snowdon from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free-market think tank.

Many charities "feel unable to speak out against government policy for fear of losing grants," he told AFP. "This is a sign of a lack of true independence."

A new bill to give the Charity Commission additional powers to tackle deliberate wrongdoing is going through parliament while accounting and lobbying rules have both been tightened up.

A government-commissioned review published this week recommended replacing the main fundraising regulator and banning charities from certain forms of fundraising if they break stricter new rules.

"I think they've got a long way to go before they step back over the line we all thought they were behind," said Rae's son Christopher. "The charities need to do more farming and less hunting."

Source: AFP