OSCR published a new report outlining the negative effects that can come about.
Scotland’s charity regulator is becoming “increasingly concerned about dominant behaviour in charities”, a new report warns.
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has published work into the effect that one person (or a small group of people) making all the decisions in a charity can have.
The report, Learning from OSCR’s Inquiries: Dominant behaviour in charities, says this can prevent charity trustees, as a whole, from acting collectively and doing their job properly or force the charity trustees to legitimise their decisions at a later date.
OSCR said it has a responsibility to carry out inquiries in response to concerns from the public, charity staff and other sources.
Reflecting on recent inquiry cases they have identified several common themes and lessons that charities, and those who work with charities, can learn from to help improve their governance and avoid potential problems.
This report, the second of its kind, warned dominant behaviour can and does result in beneficiaries, staff and funders losing confidence in a charity.
The publication states: “At OSCR we’re increasingly concerned about dominant behaviour in charities.
“More of these types of concern are being raised with us – charity trustees are telling us about them, as well as charity staff or concerned members of the public. Sometimes the issues are serious enough for us to take action under our Inquiry Policy, but even where they aren’t, they may indicate issues that trustees should address. We want to help charity trustees and those who advise them to recognise these types of behaviour and prevent or tackle them.
“Passion and dedication to the cause are often why people get involved in running charities – either as trustees or staff members. Charities need this in order to thrive, but it needs to be channelled in the right way and used constructively so that the charity can benefit from it.
“It can sometimes result in those with that passion and dedication behaving in a way that others find difficult to work with, stops them doing the job they’re supposed to do and results in them walking away, leaving the dominant person(s) in the charity.
“Allowing someone to dominate the governance of a charity may mean the charity trustees are failing to meet their legal duty to act in the interests of the charity. This means that action needs to be taken to address the issue as it is unlikely to resolve itself.
“It’s best to deal with dominance as soon as it starts, as the longer it is allowed to continue, the trickier it can be to deal with – both for the dominant person and those trying to address the behaviour.”
