Concerns and decisions
The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland's statutory functions include
- to identify and investigate apparent misconduct or mismanagement in the administration of charities
- to ensure trustees comply with their legal obligations in managing charities
- to increase public trust and confidence in charities.
This section sets out when and how you should report a concern about a charity to the Commission. It covers how and when we will act if the concern is serious, how we carry out investigations and what we report on action we have taken in such cases. This includes:
- How and when to report a concern to us
- Where we provide legal consents
- How we ensure charities comply with their legal requirements
- Results of our legal compliance work
Like other regulators, we will take a risk-based and proportionate approach to regulating charities. This means targeting our resources at the highest risks to charities' beneficiaries, services and assets to have the greatest impact.
The Commission’s regulatory approach means that the timeliness of concerns and investigations is determined by our resourcing and the overall risks posed to charities at any time.
We follow the principles of best regulatory practice, ensuring our actions are proportionate, accountable, consistent, transparent and targeted. While we take appropriate steps to keep parties informed, we are unable to give a running commentary on the progress of concerns for fear of jeopardising an investigation.