Reflecting on the Charity Commission inquiry report on The Captain Tom Foundation - what are the key lessons for the sector?

The Charity Commission's statutory inquiry into The Captain Tom Foundation, opened in June 2021, looked into matters such as:

• Whether the charity suffered financial loss, including through private benefit to any trustees, whether conflicts of interests were managed
• Whether the trustees complied with their duties under charity law

The inquiry concluded with the publication of the Commission's report on 21 November 2024.

The circumstances of the charity, named after a public figure who came to prominence during the pandemic, members of whose family are involved in running the charity, are particular to The Captain Tom Foundation. Nevertheless, the standards applied by the Commission in its inquiries are universal, meaning there are important reminders or points to learn for leaders across the sector:

• All trustees must have sufficient oversight and devote proper care to their charity trustee duties to ensure proper challenge and to manage conflicts of interest
• It is important that conflicted trustees declare conflicts of interest, given the difficulty for unconflicted trustees of managing a conflict of which they are not aware
• Benefits to trustees, including people connected with them need to be authorised in accordance with the governing document or by the Charity Commission
• Where a charity works with a commercial participator, it is important to make clear the distinction between charity and commercial participator to third parties. The distinction may be harder for the public to draw in the case of commercial participators who sell charity branded merchandise. We wrote on this topic.

See here the Commission's inquiry report and its press release.

For more information, please contact Shivaji Shiva on in our Charities team on 0121 227 3724, or complete the form below.