Charity Aid
I SUPPOSE that if the Charity Commis- sioners find that times are hard, they could always register themselves as a charity. Times not long ago were very hard, and the Commission had to police the nation's charities on a £5 million budget which did not even stretch to an accountant. The budget has doubled, but still does not seem too much to spread over the 164,534 (at the last count) registered charities, with an income which was last counted in 1985 but is now estimated at £15 or £16 billion a year. It would be helpful, for a start, to have more reliable counts and figures less dependent on estimates. The Commission- ers plan a Charities Database which will put the register and the charities' returns onto computers — an exercise, now started, which will take four years and quite a lot of the budget. The Commission now has a qualified monitoring staff some 40 strong, with a new head brought in from the Customs and Excise, but monitors can only be as good as the information they get. This week the Commissioners report to Parliament. They are still waiting to hear when Parliament will find time for the Bill which would give their supervision of charities the statutory framework it needs — for instance, in requiring properly au- dited accounts. This is supposed to happen before the election, so time may be run- ning short, but a Government which be- lieves in choice and voluntary effort could have worse memorials.
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