Charity enforcement


Following recent legislative changes and a raft of high profile controversies, charities and trustees are facing unprecedented scrutiny of the actions and decisions.

As part of our wider charity sector offering, we support charitable organisations and individual trustees with responses to enforcement action initiated by supervisory bodies. We help you understand the standards expected of you and the options available, and guide you to take decisions in the interests of the beneficiaries that you serve. With the Charity Commission being challenged to "make greater use of its statutory powers in line with its objective of maintaining confidence in the sector”, Trustees need to ensure that they follow guidance and act in the best interests of the charity at all times.  

Our experience

We can help you proactively navigate your way through difficult issues, or help you react to potential enforcement action. If you're facing sanction we can help you defend your position and ensure that the charity and those running it are treated fairly and proportionately.

We've advised national and international charities, individual trustees and complex charitable organisations with a range of difficult issues. Our work includes:

  • Successfully challenging a proposed warning notice on behalf of a national charity chair

  • Advising a high profile independent review of a charity, undertaken to consider its governance arrangements and responses to previous criticisms. Helping the review team navigate their way through confidentiality issues and ensuring that they undertook their review fairly and proportionately.

  • Training charity trustees on their individual and collective duties

  • Providing advice on the need to report serious incidents to the Charity Commission

  • Advising a national regulator on the effect of charitable status on their regulatory regimes

  • Preparing submissions on behalf of individual trustees to an independent review of their conduct and allegations that they hadn't acted with reasonable skill and care

What our clients say about us

“We were facing a complex and worrying problem within our large national charity. Duncan Astill’s calm approachable style was invaluable in putting our minds at rest and he was able to achieve a very satisfactory conclusion on our behalf.”

Trustees of a large national charity

Our expertise

Regulatory and automotive
Crisis management
Food regulatory
Health and care regulation
Police investigations
Charity enforcement
Environmental law - enforcement
Gambling and liquor licensing
Health and safety
Regulatory due diligence

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Our broad experience of a range of regulatory regimes makes us ideally placed to provide flexible advice to novel or contentious issues.

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Related sectors and services

Crisis management Charities and social enterprise Regulatory