Action for Botton

A friend of ELAS from that region told us about the present shocking story of use of power in a charity to wind down a long-running support community for a mixture of autistic and learning disabled residents,Botton Village, www.actionforbotton.org/. Though the Botton story is in England, the entirely discretionary insecure nature of charity regulation is equally a concern here.

No matter how corrupt the goings on in any charity, OSCR (Office of Scottish Charity Regulator) has the power to choose whether it regards it as serving "public interest" to bother to do anything. The mere fact that an offence has happened in a charity, a supposedly legally binding constitution has been ignored, does not oblige them to do anything about it. e.g. Even an actual case where a charity closed a bank account belonging to a mental health advocacy group, seized it contents, and only informed the group after doing it, ignoring its constitution, OSCR declined to pursue. Likewise, the Charity Commission there described itself as having the power to "feel" whether or not a case requires its response. Thus:

"Your enquiry will now be assessed. If we feel that the issues do not fall within our regulatory remit you may not receive a response from us. However, if the issues raised fall within our regulatory remit we will aim to respond to you within 15 working days from receipt. Please do not send us a paper version unless we have specifically requested this." Thankfully the news from the Botton site is that the Commission has been induced by sufficient opinion to "take a fresh look at" it: www.actionforbotton.org/Betrayal-of-Trust/Breaches-of-trust

The Charity Commission guidance states:
"A power to expel a member must be exercised in good faith and not capriciously and the basic requirements of a right to be told the nature and details of the offence and reasons for the expulsion or suspension, a right to notice of the hearing and a right for the members to put his case are well accepted". But as the Botton campaign describes: "In 2012 they managed to alter the charity constitution by threatening every member with expulsion if they voted against a key proposal, as a consequence of which the board now has only independent trustees and nobody left to represent Camphill co-workers and their values."

www.facebook.com/action4botton

>Maurice Frank