What Have Charities Ever Done for Us?. Cook, Stephen
but it affects all organisations that might campaign, including charities. It requires them to register with and report to the Electoral Commission as ‘non-party campaigners’ if they spend more than £20,000 in England, or £10,000 in other parts of the UK, on ‘regulated activities’ that can ‘reasonably be regarded as intended to influence voters’. There are strict limits on how much registered campaigners can spend on regulated activities – canvassing, public events, transport costs and so on.
The law caused consternation and uncertainty among charities. Does spending include staff costs? What qualifies as communication with the public, as opposed to supporters? How should costs be calculated when working in coalition with other charities? The 300 pages of guidance produced by the Electoral Commission to answer these and other questions was pronounced ‘incomprehensible’ by Sir Stephen Bubb, at the time leader of Acevo.20 For the 2015 general election, there were 12 charities among 68 non-party campaigners registered with the Electoral Commission, including the gay rights charity Stonewall, the RSPCA, the Woodland Trust and the Salvation Army, all of which were familiar with campaigning work and big enough to take the extra bureaucracy in their stride. But there was also evidence that the law was having a chilling effect. “Lots of my clients are downing tools,” said Chris Priestley, a charity specialist at the law firm Withers. “They have taken the view that with the administrative burden of trying to track spend, and the fear of being on the wrong side of the law, the simplest thing is not to campaign.”21
After the election, the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement, set up by a broad coalition of charities and NGOs to investigate concerns about the Act and chaired by the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries, concluded:22
It had a negative impact on charities and campaign groups speaking out on crucial and legitimate issues ahead of the election … Charities and campaign groups reported to us that they found it difficult to know what was and was not regulated activity, and as a result many activities aimed at raising awareness and generating discussion ahead of the election have not taken place.
The government asked the Conservative peer Lord (Robin) Hodgson to review the workings of the Act, but cited lack of parliamentary time when it declined to act on his proposals.23 The Labour Party pledged to repeal the Act, which remains a source of grievance for many charities and infrastructure organisations, including the NCVO, Acevo and CAF.
The government followed up the Lobbying Act with further initiatives on campaigning which charities found even more worrying. Shortly before the 2015 election, the then secretary of state for communities and local government, Eric Pickles, told Parliament that the IEA, one of the think-tanks mentioned above, had “undertaken extensive research on so-called ‘sock puppets’”:24
“They have exposed the extensive practice of taxpayers’ money being given to pressure groups and supposed charities, in turn being used to lobby the government and parliament for more money and more regulation. This is an issue which needs to be addressed. My department has set an example to the rest of Whitehall by amending our standard grant agreements to impose a new anti-lobbying, anti-sock puppet clause.”
After the election returned the Conservatives with a small majority, the junior Cabinet Office minister at the time, Matt Hancock MP, emulated Pickles by announcing that all government departments would be required to insert a clause in all grant agreements, spelling out that the funding could not be used for activity intended to influence Parliament, government or political parties.25 His statement again referenced the IEA research ‘exposing the practice of taxpayers’ money given to pressure groups being diverted to fund lobbying rather than good causes or public services’. It went on: ‘Taxpayers’ money must be spent on improving people’s lives and spreading opportunities, not wasted on the farce of government lobbying government.’
When it was pointed out in Parliament by the then shadow charities minister, Anna Turley, that Hancock had recently received a donation of £4,000 from Neil Record, founder of a currency management company and chair of the IEA, Hancock replied that he had had no discussions with the IEA about the announcement and “it is right that taxpayers’ money should be spent on the things for which it was intended, not on ensuring that lobbyists can take politicians out for lunch”.26 The Cabinet Office also issued a statement asserting that the decision ‘to end the farce of government lobbying government’ had been taken ‘entirely on the advice of civil service officials’.27
Hancock’s proposal raised the hackles of the voluntary sector as rarely seen before. Sir Stuart Etherington, then chief executive of the NCVO, said it amounted to charities being required to “take a vow of silence”. It was potentially more damaging than the Lobbying Act, he said, because it was a matter of policy rather than legislation, and therefore more difficult to challenge.28 “That’s why you have to draw a line in the sand, because otherwise it might become more problematic – these guys aren’t going to stop on this issue,” he told a conference.
The fear among charities was that the proposal would prevent organisations in receipt of government funding from taking part in what they regarded as normal activities beneficial to all concerned, such as raising policy questions, hosting visits by MPs, presenting research findings to Parliament or contributing to the general policy debate.29 An intensive backroom struggle with the Cabinet Office went on for several months and culminated with a threat by the NCVO to initiate a judicial review of the policy.
This prompted the government to back down, to the extent that the proposal was revised and more carefully worded.30 The new guidance still prohibited paid-for lobbying and ‘undue’ attempts to influence policy using government funding, and some sector bodies, such as the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (Navca), remained suspicious of it. Crucially, however, it allowed for what the sector regarded as ‘legitimate influencing activity’ and the change was regarded by Etherington as a victory:31
Our principal concern with the original clause was that it was counterproductive and would have meant grant-funded charities were unable to provide policy-makers with crucial insight that improves legislation, regulation and public services. This fundamental flaw has been recognised by government and the new guidance is crystal clear in saying that activities such as raising issues with ministers and civil servants, responding to consultations and contributing to the general policy debate are not only permitted but actively welcomed.
Successes despite restrictions
In summary, then, campaigning has been, and seems likely to continue to be, something of a minefield for charities. But relatively few charities choose to get deeply involved in sustained campaigning, especially on the national political stage; in the words of Gwythian Prins quoted at the start of this chapter, most of them more or less stick to their knitting, in the sense that they are involved exclusively in uncontroversial community, philanthropic or relief work in the UK and abroad. But the minority that do campaign persistently, or are involved in a mixture of relief work and campaigning, depending on current circumstances in their area of concern, are constantly under scrutiny, susceptible to challenge by politicians, censure by the regulator or legal restrictions. Governments since 2010 have, when pressed, acknowledged the importance of the campaigning role of charities in principle, but the record suggests that they were simultaneously inclined to restrict it. Some campaigning organisations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International, have chosen over time not to be charities in order to avoid the restrictions, or have been denied charitable status by the Charity Commission. Some of them have set up subsidiary charitable arms to provide education and research, follow other permitted charitable purposes or raise funds.
Whatever the recent arguments about charity campaigning, however, the fact remains that many beneficial changes in the law in the late 20th and early 21st centuries were the result of charity campaigns – some lasting for years – in alliance with sympathetic parliamentarians. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and the Consumers’ Association, for example, both campaigned successfully to make it compulsory for people to wear seatbelts in cars from 1983; RoSPA and the road safety charity Brake were also involved in the campaign to ban drivers from using mobile