UK Charity Commission - Next Stage
22 July 2004 at 1:07 pm
Andrew Hind, chief operating officer of the BBC World Service, will become The UK Charity Commission’s first chief executive in the next stage of the organisation’s development.
As a result of the 2002 Strategy Unit Report the Commission is changing its governance arrangements. It will now operate with a formal Board and executive structure.
The appointment of a separate Chair and Chief Executive to replace the former Chief Commissioner post is the first stage of this transition.
Andrew Hind will work with the senior management team to develop the Commission’s enabling role in light of the new UK Charities Bill.
Hind has extensive experience working with the charity sector. He was a senior executive with ActionAid and Barnardo’s before moving to the BBC in 1995. He has also served as a trustee of several major charities, including VSO, the UK committee for UNICEF, the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and a number of small charities in his local community in north London.
Hind, who is 48, was co-founder in 1988 of the Charity Finance Directors’ Group – an organisation promoting excellence in financial management for charities. The author of The Governance and Management of Charities, and a judge of the national Charity Awards, Andrew is a well-respected figure in the charity sector.
Hind says the voluntary and community sector has an important role to play in a strong and effective Charity Commission.
The Charity Commission is the organisation responsible for the statutory regulation of charities in England and Wales.
In September 2002 the Cabinet Office published a review of the legal and regulatory framework in which charities, and the wider Not for Profit sector, operate.
The Commission’s approach is to regulate so as to promote compliance with charity law and to equip charities to work better.
UK Charities are free and independent organisations. The regulator works to:
– to ensure that charities meet the legal requirements for being a charity, and are equipped to operate properly and within the law;
– to check that charities are run for public benefit, and not for private advantage;
– to ensure that charities are independent and that their trustees take their decisions free of control or undue influence from outside; and
– to detect and remedy serious mismanagement or deliberate abuse by or within charities.
For more information on the UK Charity Committee go to www.charity-commission.gov.uk.
