Charity News: Faith Charities

CCEW has updated its guidance on faith charities in order to make it easier to find information, including retitling its guidance to ‘managing faith charities as trustees’.

The guidance covers a range of issues where the nature of faith charities necessitates additional, specific guidance beyond that provided in the CCEW’s more general guidance for charities. These include issues such as when faith charities are required to register with CCEW and the process for doing so, appointing trustees and when they can be paid, safeguarding and reporting serious incidents and managing charity finances.

The issue of safeguarding is of particular importance, with a recent report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse highlighting the extent to which children involved in religious organisations are vulnerable to sexual abuse in a cultural setting where victim blaming, abuse of power and mistrust of external authorities are common. Faith charities should learn from reports such as these and ensure that they have robust safeguarding policies in force that seek to protect the vulnerable, and to take appropriate action when standards of behaviour fall short.

This updated guidance is timely, with the announcement by CCEW that it is beginning preparations for expanding its register of charities, working with the Church of England to pilot and manage the receipt of applications from cathedrals applying for charitable status followed by 35,000 church charities, which are currently excepted from the need to register over the next decade.

Guidance: Managing faith charities as trustees Child protection in religious organisations and settings Investigation Report

 

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