Members of the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee are to write to Number 10 amid concerns over the Charity Commission’s actions during a spat with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).

At a hearing this week its chair Simon Hoare MP said that on assessing evidence around the disagreement, the regulator “does not, on the face of what we have heard, appear at all fit for purpose”.

The Committee has also accused the regulator of “blundering” into the row with the PHSO.

Hoare added that from “colleagues across the House” he has spoken to, the Commission “is in the junk bond basket reputationally and organisationally”.

In addition to the Prime Minister's Office, the Committee will also be writing to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as the regulator’s sponsoring department, and the Cabinet Office, around their concerns.

The row centres on concerns raised by the PHSO that the Charity Commission failed to implement its recommendations to improve following its probe into the regulator’s handling of two sexual abuse cases at charities.

The ombudsman’s investigations found “several failings” around decision making at the Commission and its communication with complainants.

The reports were the subject of a failed attempt by the Commission in the High Court to bring a judicial review over its concerns over the ombudsman’s statutory remit.

This legal action had risked delaying the laying of the reports before parliament, but these were published last year after MPs intervened.

Commission's attitude 'belligerent', claims MP

Committee member Simon Carling MP described the Commission’s attitude to the PHSO's decisions as “belligerent”.

Meanwhile, Hoare questioned the quality of legal advice the Commission received and the decision making of its board members.

He told Charity Commission chief executive David Holdsworth at the hearing “you have kept the receipt, I hope” for the legal advice.

Holdsworth revealed that “from end to end on both the cases” the Commission has spent £70,000.

Hoare said that the Commission’s decision making over seeking a judicial review could only be justified “if you are a new organisation of three men and dog in a back bedroom” rather than a “well, established, well-resourced entity”.

“Yet you, as the commission, blunder into this, causing considerable upset to two complaints and a massive amount of additional and unnecessary work to the PHSO, troubling the courts and seeking to undermine parliamentary privilege by forming a legal block between information to be received by Parliament,” he told Holdsworth, as well as Commission chair Julia Unwin, at the hearing.

Unwin said that she challenged the word “blunder” to describe its actions around the row with the PHSO, and that “misunderstanding” would be more appropriate, adding that the Commission “is not proud of how we conducted ourselves on these cases”.

She added that the Commission is looking to boost staff numbers and carry out a “serious organisational review” when asked by MPs for details around plans around improvement.

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