Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he last conducted a review of the effectiveness of the Charity Commission.

DCMS has regular discussions with the Charity Commission around the regulatory framework for charities in England and Wales.

The Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016 gave the Charity Commission extra regulatory powers including strengthening the protection of charities against abuse. DCMS carried out a Post-Implementation Review of the Act which was published on 16th March 2020. Based on the evidence within the Post-Implementation Review, DCMS concluded that the Charity Commission had used these new powers effectively. The National Audit Office published a progress update on the Commission in November 2017, recognising that it "has improved significantly" since its 2013 report.

Increased use of the Commission’s powers also shows progress: In 2019/20 the Commission concluded 6,246 regulatory action cases, of which 181 were statutory inquiries, and opened 67 new inquiries. It used its regulatory powers almost 2,000 times. This is compared with 15 statutory inquiries and 200 uses of legal powers in 2012-13.