Charity Commission Guidance on reporting incidents involving partners

The Charity Commission has published new guidance for trustees on reporting serious incidents involving partners of the charity.

The Commission has previously advised trustees that they are under an obligation to make a serious incident report where an incident has occurred involving one of the charity’s partners, which materially affects the charity, its staff, operations, finances and reputation. However, trustees have received little to no guidance as to what may amount to ‘materially affecting’ the charity.

The Commission’s new guidance provides charities with greater clarity over the circumstances under which a serious incident report should be made. The Commission has provided examples of high risk, medium risk and low risk categories of incidents, in order to helpfully advise charities on the types of situations that may and may not trigger the requirement for reporting to the Commission.

The new guidance is to be welcomed by charity trustees who now have a clear starting point in the event of an incident occurring. In providing examples of high to low risk incidents, it is hoped that trustees will be better equipped to deal with incidents involving partners of the charity in practice.

The full guidance note published by the Commission can be accessed here.

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