Slashing the Charity Commission budget won't help create the Big Society, say voluntary sector experts.

Andrew Phillips, the Liberal Democrat peer and leading authority on charity law, has criticised cuts to the Charity Commission's budget.

Speaking at the recent 19th annual Charity Law conference, jointly organised by Bates Wells & Braithwaite solicitors (BWB) and the Directory of Social Change (DSC), Lord Phillips said: 'It is scandalous that the Charity Commission has had such huge cuts in its staffing, especially considering the amount of extra work created by the 2006 Charities Act.'

Arguing for a new approach to legislation and regulation generally, he went on to say that the new Government 'should not lift a legislative finger' and that politicians must resist the temptation to 'reinvent more and more wheels - we've too many already.'

Debra Allcock Tyler, DSC's chief executive, echoed Lord Phillips' sentiments and argued that the Charity Commission was vital to the voluntary sector, especially at a time when the Government envisioned a greater role for charities as part of the 'Big Society' agenda.

She argued that small charities in particular needed access to clear advice and help from the Commission, and that further budget cuts would make this even less available.

She called for regulation to be simplified, so that charities were better enabled to understand and comply with their obligations in the first place.

Allcock Tyler went on to warn that continued cuts could lead to pressure to make it harder to register a charity or to force them to merge, and that both scenarios posed a 'dire threat to active citizenship and voluntary effort in our country'.
DSC would vigorously oppose any such proposals, she said.

Stephen Lloyd, senior partner at BWB, pointed out that the budget cuts had already impacted the Commission's ability to implement all the elements of the
2006 Charities Act.

He predicted that the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), a new legal form for charities, would become yet another 'fossil in the legislation', because it was unlikely the Commission would be able to afford to register tens of thousands of new CIOs.

In the recently announced coalition agreement, the Government undertakes to 'support the creation and expansion of mutuals, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises'.

However, the Charity Commission has lost 178 posts in the last six years, and is already coping with a 5% reduction in this year's budget.

The Chancellor George Osborne has made 'reducing the costs of quangos' a priority for the £6bn of savings in public expenditure to be made this year following the Emergency Budget on 22 June.

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