Charities Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 63:"After Clause 26, insert the following new clause—"    ““RECEIVER AND MANAGER TO BE PAID BY COMMISSION    In section 19(6)(b) of the 1993 Act, for ““income of the charities concerned”” substitute ““Charity Commission for England and Wales””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is on a rather different matter. Its purpose is to make the Charity Commission responsible for paying its own receivers and managers, rather than the charity on which the receivers and managers are imposed having to pay. The Charity Commission already has the power to pay its own receivers and managers, as set out in the 1993 Act, but usually if not invariably charges those costs to the charity. The commission should also pay the fees and expenses of any receiver and manager, and consultants appointed to assist a receiver and manager, in all cases. In the past, the commission has shown itself to be somewhat careless with charity funds when appointing and monitoring receivers and managers. For example, in the Voice of Methodism Association case, the receiver and manager was in post for more than six years, at a cost to that charity of £100,000. In the current Cancer Care Foundation case, the receiver and manager has already run up costs in excess of £600,000, and those costs are increasing. The commission’s legal authority for appointing a receiver and manager is to protect the assets of the charity. Running up such costs is hardly protecting the assets of the charity. Questions may well be asked in certain cases on whether such an appointment has been detrimental to that responsibility. There have been a number of cases in which the receiver and manager has been in post for several years, incurring costs to the charity concerned running into hundreds and thousands of pounds or, on occasions, more than £1 million. The amendment will serve to help the new commission management in its attempts to restrict the use of receivers and managers for the more serious cases, in which they are still bound to be required. Bluntly, the commission is likely to be more careful when incurring receiver and manager costs if it has to find them out of its own pocket rather than that of the charity. I note that, in the Charities Act 1993, the costs of the receivers and managers are to be paid out of the income of the charity. I suspect in some cases that the charity may well have had to delve into its capital, and I wonder whether that is entirely legal. I beg to move.