New Scheme of Delegation: an explainer

On 21 February 2025, the Department for Communities published the new Scheme of Delegation for the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, following approval from the Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons MLA.

The Commission has long been supportive of such a scheme, which is expected to improve efficiency in the regulator’s decision-making processes.

What is changing

The Court of Appeal judgment of February 2020 in the case of McKee & Others v Charity Commission for Northern Ireland ruled that all Commission decisions had to be made by Commissioners rather than staff following manuals approved by Commissioners. This ruling significantly changed how the Commission operated.

The seven Commissioners, who are not full time, became responsible for making all casework, enquiries, compliance and registration decisions and orders through a committee. Staff assisted by gathering information and advising Commissioners, but could not make decisions themselves. This led to delays and a reduced volume of decisions being made.

The Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 addressed this by allowing certain decisions to be delegated to staff - once a Scheme of Delegation was drafted, consulted on and approved by the Minister.

What will the Scheme mean for charities?

The Scheme is expected to have a positive impact on the thousands of charities regulated by the Commission.

While internal Commission processes must now be updated in line with the Scheme, the administrative burden around decision-making within the Commission should be reduced. This, in turn, is expected to speed up decision-making, allowing charities to receive quicker responses to, for example, casework or registration applications.

The Scheme will also empower staff to interact with charity trustees in a different, more efficient and enabling way.

However, the Schedule 1 committee will not be entirely removed.

• Certain decisions relating to investigations into charities will still go through the committee.
• The power to open a statutory inquiry, the Commission’s most serious type of investigation, remains a decision for Commissioners only.
• Similarly, decisions on whether or not to publish a statutory inquiry report will be taken by the committee.

When can charities expect to see changes?

With Ministerial approval now secured and the Board of Commissioners having formally adopted the Scheme, staff will begin its implementation. This includes decision-making manuals being reviewed and updated in line with the Scheme. Charities will then start seeing improvements in processing times and staff interactions.

Registration and casework times: update

In September, the Commission published a notice to advise that there may be delays in processing registration and casework applications. This was due to the loss of a few experienced members of staff and the ongoing impact of the 2020 Court of Appeal ruling.

While staff may now make decisions under the Scheme of Delegation and steps are being taken to shorten processing timescales, improvements will be gradual rather than instant. This transitional period will allow for new decision-making processes to be embedded and for staff to complete the necessary training.

At present the Commission aims to process straight forward registration applications within six months of receipt of the application.  More complex applications will take longer. Each application is assessed on a case by case basis.