The Charity Commission has made “baby steps” in the right direction with its clarifications to EU referendum guidance but the document remains an “unhelpful addition to the debate”, Acevo has said.

The regulator yesterday issued revised guidance on charities’ responsibilities around the EU referendum, in response to concerns raised with the original document.

Clarifications have been made around the activities the guidance covers, the various ways to engage in the referendum and the associated risks, and trustees’ responsibilities in safeguarding their organisations from exploitation by third parties.

Sarah Atkinson, director of policy and communications at the commission, has published a blog post explaining the changes.

Acevo director of public policy Asheem Singh said the guidance “remains pedantic”, and “risks shutting out important voices”. It would be better to withdraw the guidance than “produce yet more unworkable iterations of a flawed document”, he said.

“The EU referendum is not a party political matter; it is a public policy issue and charities are absolutely right to determine for themselves whether their beneficiaries will be served one way or another and make appropriate representations in public using the information they have. It would be a dereliction of duty for them to do anything else.”

NCVO chief executive Sir Stuart Etherington said the commission was right to revise the guidance. While the change in tone is helpful, Etherington said a number of inconsistencies remain.

“On the one hand it is helpful that the commission recognises that there are often factors beyond a charities’ control however the new guidance continues to state that charities ‘must not allow’ their positions to be misconstrued,” Etherington said. “The revised guidance fails to recognise that the outcome of the referendum will be relevant to a number of charities and that some will be considerably affected.”

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