NIACRO works to reduce crime and its impact on people and communities

NIACRO’S RESPONSE TO THE CHARITIES (NI) ORDER 2006

1.         INTRODUCTION

1.1       NIACRO, the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, is a voluntary organisation, working for 35 years to reduce crime and its impact on people and communities.  NIACRO provides services under the headings of: promoting safer communities; working with children and young people who offend; providing services to families and children of offenders; supporting offenders and ex-prisoners in the community; working with prisoners. 

1.2       NIACRO has links with, receives funding from, and/or works in partnership with all the main criminal justice agencies in Northern Ireland. 

1.3We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Charities (NI) Order 2006 and make our detailed comments below.

2.KEY POINTS

2.1NIACRO welcomes the greater accountability for charitiesprovided through the concept of a public benefit test, with an appropriate balance between stringency in registering as a charity and the breadth of purpose which could be considered to be in the public benefit.

2.2NIACRO proposes that the charity accounting threshold be raised to ?100,000 in line with Britain, with audit requirements consistent across the UK. 

2.3The Commission should be subject to scrutiny by the Committee for Social Development at the NI Assembly NIACRO welcomes the tightening of eligibility for trustees and the formalising of recruitment of trustees, but is concerned that charities wishing to appoint trustees who are ex-prisoners/ex-offenders should be able to do so.  See Appendix A for NIACRO’s detailed concerns in relation to this proposal.

2.4NIACRO welcomes the opportunities afforded to the sector by the Incorporation of Trustees and the new criteria of Charitable Incorporated Organisations which will provide new choices for charitable organisations.  

2.5NIACRO welcomes the proposal that UKwide charities should not be exempt from the legislation and that activity in Northern Ireland requires registration.  NIACRO would strongly welcome co-operation between Charity Commission of England and Wales, the Office of the Scottish Regulator (OSCR) and the Charity Commissioner for Ni in streamlining registration and information requirements, as well as ongoing cooperation with government departments in Ireland. 

2.6NIACRO feels that care should be taken to establish appropriate working parameters for the Charity Commission’s powers to streamline the audit functions across government, so that the Charity Commission requirements are streamlined with Government’s requirements.

3.         CONCLUSION

3.1       NIACRO wishes to ensure that with the establishment of the Charity Commission government and the community and voluntary sector will be able to work together to maximise positive aspects of their relationship which would include the promotion of transparency and public confidence while minimising the creation of unnecessary bureaucracy or the requirement of further resources.

Appendix A

Trustee Eligibility

Does this cover every type of dishonesty / deception offence, spent or unspent? If it does then the implication would be that it is open for interpretation and may be used as a tool to debar any potential trustee with convictions that may not ordinarily be a barrier.

It remains a fact that the total ex-offender/ex-prisoner populations in Northern Ireland face significant barriers that can broadly be defined as follows:

?Policy/Legislative

?Structural

?Attitudinal

There must be an acknowledgement by Government that the vast majority of ex-prisoners received sentences in excess of 30 months and are therefore offered little effective protection or redress under the Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation.

In order to overcome structural and attitudinal barriers it is important that policy and legislation be the driver to assist entrenched societal points of view. This reinforces the importance of having legislation that is relevant to this jurisdiction.

Employers / organisations must be mindful of the fact that the fundamental rationale in terms of equality is that when a sentence is passed in the court, it is not meant to discriminate in employment unless explicitly stated, or to disqualify people from training/education, facilities, goods and services. 

In its work to support employers to make informed recruitment choices when dealing with conviction information, NIACRO’s experience is that the majority of organisations fail to make informed and fair decisions because of their fear of handling the information and thus choose to discount many individuals whose previous convictions may have no bearing on the individuals capabilities to do the job.

If someone wishes to become a trustee, and has a spent conviction for personation (conflict related) the reality of the situation is that the individual may be disallowed such a position even though the conviction has no bearing on capability to carry out the duties of the role. Equally important to consider are the circumstances behind each case before debarring, for example, individuals who have been convicted of other dishonesty offences such as making off without payment (perhaps as a young person many years ago) or theft which covers various offences.

This goes against the grain of rehabilitation and the government agenda to promote the concept of resettlement. In terms of the Northern Ireland context there needs to consideration of the different profile, with respect to politically motivated ex-prisoners, that exists in Northern Ireland with regard for social, historical, political and indeed legislative differences from the rest of GB and indeed Europe.

Organisations need to be able to stand over making an informed decision on the basis of potential risk issues etc. and therefore need to work through transparent risk assessment process. Individuals need to know the process is a credible one which will protect them. There is also a need to acknowledge things like political motivation against risk / seriousness and to ensure there have been no other concerning / serious (“non-political”) convictions since.

11^th October 2006