Scotland's charity legislation needs tightened if we are to avoid another public confidence disaster says Robert Armour
There are times when you’d love Scotland’s charity regulator to have prosecuting powers much like the Scottish SPCA or the RSPCA. Like errant and irresponsible pet owners, there are those in charge of charities who have no care or concern for that which they are meant to be protecting and use their charity as if it is some kind of personal lifestyle extension.
It’s rare but it does happen with some notable cases. There was Ronnie Saez at Glasgow East Regeneration Agency, a now defunct ALEO that paid its senior management huge sums – of which the main beneficiary was Big Ron who wangled an immoral £500,000 golden cheerio as a reward for his abject failure – before being effectively closed down by OSCR.
Before that was the notorious and pretty slithery fundraiser Tony Freeman who dressed in designer suits and drove Italian sport cars – all paid for by the bucketloads of cash he siphoned from an organisation called Breast Cancer Research (Scotland).
And last week came the news that the remaining charlatans at the little known charity Scotia Aid Sierra Leone – founded and controlled by self-styled devout Catholic Dan Houston – have declared themselves bankrupt in a bid to rid themselves of the corporate skulduggery that has earned them hundreds of thousands of pounds at the expensive of destitute African children.
What unites the three stooges above is that they used charity to pay themselves vast sums and all paid for through the public purse. And little can be done about it, save banning them from ever running a charity in the future.
It’s not nearly good enough. If public confidence has been rescued in recent times by charity law and tighter fundraising regulation, it could still be threatened by those who exploit charity status to become wealthy.
It seems we’ve come no further since Tony Freeman...if we can’t effectively prosecute those who are immorally profiting from charity
It’s a loophole that needs closed. OSCR has the power to remove errant trustees or close down a charity but that’s where its powers end. The perpetrators often go Scot free as is the case with the trustees of Scotia Aid. Despite these directors effectively running a scam where they were proven to deliberately mislead local authorities by taking over vacant premises for zero rates, no criminal action has been forthcoming.
It was the same story for Tony Freeman back in 2003. Despite that case hastening charity law reform in Scotland, no prosecution took place (though he eventually got jailed for other offences).
It seems we’ve come no further since then. Since 2005 the Charity Act has served us well but loopholes still appear. It's time to revisit charity law in Scotland and find a way to ensure that criminal prosecutions can be taken against these moral bankrupts who defiantly use charity status for their own selfish purposes.
