Tough choices, steady purpose: supporting charities through change - David Holdsworth's speech at the Charity Commission's Annual Public Meeting 2025

David Holdsworth's speech at the Charity Commission's Annual Public Meeting 2025.

"Good morning, Bore da and thank you to everyone joining us today – here in the room and online from across England and Wales, and perhaps beyond.

Mark has focused on some of the social and political challenges facing the sector right now.

The financial environment is also challenging but as many of you have heard me say over the last year I believe the greatest challenges do also offer the greatest opportunities.

Many charities face a triple crunch: rising costs, rising demands, and significant pressure on income.

Our first annual Charity Sector Risk Assessment, published earlier this year, highlights financial sustainability as among the pressing issues facing the sector in 2025.

Similarly, research published this year showed that charities are supporting three times as many people as they were five years ago.

Nearly half of charity trustees said their charity had been forced to make changes as a result of cost-of-living pressures in the past year. Around one in ten told us they had stopped providing a particular service, for example.

Trustees of charities large and small are facing the hard reality that simply keeping on doing, keeping on going, is not an option.

On top of financial pressures, we know that charities face a range of other challenges.

As well as the social issues Mark addressed, there's demographic change – ageing populations in some areas, growing diversity in others. Geographic disparities. Generational shifts in expectations around participation, transparency,  and accountability.

Then there's technology. AI and digital transformation present exciting opportunities, but also risks that must be managed.

Charities are having to make tough choices. In some cases, controversial choices.

The question is not whether trustees should respond – in fact it is is vital they do – but how trustees respond is equally important.

With that in mind, let me be clear about two things this morning.

First, the Commission is not here to second guess trustees who make tough decisions in the face of straitened financial circumstances and do so within the law and our guidance.

We've seen some big announcements by charities over recent months.

Some have been relatively painless, if significant: we've heard that the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust is winding up, transferring its incredible assets to the National Trust.

Because doing so will help the charity deliver on the promise made in its purposes. Namely to preserve and promote the heritage of the cradle of the industrial revolution. So a challenge was transformed into an opportunity.

Some decisions have been harder. NSPCC is undergoing a significant in the face of economic challenges and to help ensure its vital work to keep children safe can continue long into the future.

Change of this scale is never easy, and it's right that trustees are adapting, and proactively looking to the future …..not just today …..to ensure the vital work they do for their beneficiaries continues. It is also important that trustees explain their decision making, for as we know transparency is critical to public trust and confidence.

The Commission's role in situations like these is clear: to be sure that trustees comply with their legal duties, follow proper processes, and act in accordance with charity law when making significant decisions about their charity's future.

Where trustees do so – even when the decisions are controversial and difficult – it is not our role to prevent them from exercising their judgment about how best to fulfil their charity's purposes.

That's my first assurance: we will not come down hard on trustees making difficult choices in the face of impossible circumstances.

Indeed, where appropriate we will step in to defend – not their decisions, but their right and duty to make such decisions.

Because the Commission's role is not to set the course for charities, to tell them how to do their work. Our duty instead is to ensure that trustees are steering according to their fixed navigational point, namely their purpose.

Second, and linked. I want to be clear where trustees do not follow our guidance or breach charity law, we will take action.

Every concern raised with us is examined. No complaint within our remit is dismissed.

And where we find that trustees have failed in their legal duties – whether in how decisions are made or how charitable resources are protected – we will step in decisively to protect the charity's purpose and assets.

That is our duty to the public and to donors.

And it is necessary, not just for the charity in question, but in promoting wider public trust in charities which is so essential to the public's willingness to give, and upon which charities rely.

Our role in overseeing the sector, and its income, is aimed at giving donors and funders the confidence that, when they give to a registered charity, their money is protected.

We are pleased that, against the backdrop of these challenges, public trust in charities remains high, with almost 60% of people reporting high trust in charities – placing them second only to doctors among trusted institutions.

Similarly, confidence in charitable spending has improved, with over 6 in 10 people believing donations are reaching the intended cause – an increase of 7 percentage points in 12 months and a finding that the sector, and we as regulator, should take some comfort in.

The Commission itself has had to grapple with record levels of demand for our services, while our staff resources have been shrinking. This has led to some pain points, which we know some of you will have felt, as we have. For example, in the year to March 2025 we received 9,836 applications to register a charity, up 9% on the previous year, while our headcount was declining.

We too have faced tough decisions and have worked to improve our operational efficiency to ensure that we fulfil our core functions as effectively – and cost effectively - as possible.

For example, we measure operational efficiency by looking at cases concluded per full-time equivalent staff member in any given unit.

Our data shows us that, over recent years, our productivity has improved in key regulatory functions. In our registrations function, and despite the increased pressures just mentioned, productivity has increased by 10% every year since 2022.

Similar improvements are seen in regulatory concern work, thanks to more efficient triaging and effective handling of incoming concerns about charities. For example, over the past 4 years, the number of regulatory concern matters being handled has more than doubled from 38 to 82 per case officer.

Anyone interested in further figures and information about our performance and work over the past year can of course look at our annual report, which is available on GOV.UK – and you'll shortly see an animated version of some of the highlights from that report.

I am proud of these improvements on efficiency and productivity. They put us in a great position as we look to the challenges and opportunities ahead.

And they have been recognised in a vote of confidence from His Majesty's Treasury, which granted us a significant funding increase in this year's Spending Review.

This settlement will allow us to invest in technology and digital solutions, and build capacity so that we are future-proofed against growing incoming volumes.

I am confident that charities and the public will see the benefit of these investments over coming years, and that their experience of the Commission will be smoother, and even more efficient and quicker than it currently is.

It is my aim and my intention to ensure that the Commission continues to deliver a world class public service, by making the most of new technologies to deliver on our time-honoured purpose.

The hard work is beginning now to prepare for the significant changes we will need to make in order to make the most of the new resources within the timescales available.

As part of these changes, I want to set out an ambition: the Commission must fulfil its potential in engaging directly with charities, using our convening power to bring the sector together to tackle shared challenges and forge new collaborations.

Because the Commission's purpose, as set by Parliament, is not just to respond to what comes in to us – whether that is an application to register a new charity, or a complaint for us to assess.

We are also a proactive and supportive regulator, spotting emerging issues and trends, both from our own data and from the environment in which we, and charities, operate.

We want to strengthen our capacity for helping the sector get ahead of problems, and seize opportunities.

Earlier this year, we led a roundtable bringing government and international aid charities together to discuss ways of delivering aid safely to those impacted by the war in the Middle East.

More recently, as Mark has mentioned, we met charities working with refugee communities to understand the hostility they face and the steps needed to keep their staff and volunteers safe from harm.

Looking ahead, we intend to move beyond these responsive interventions to explore structured, sustained engagement with sub-sectors, bringing together charities with government, business, and local authorities to address systemic challenges.

Let me be clear: this is not about the Commission duplicating the excellent work of existing infrastructure bodies and sub-sector leaders.

It's about leveraging our unique position at the intersection of government, the sector, and the public we all serve – a vantage point that enables us to broker dialogue and facilitate action that might not otherwise happen.

This matters. The challenges facing charities – and the communities they serve – are too complex and too urgent for fragmented responses. We will share further details of this work in the coming months.

Let me return to where I began.

The circumstances facing charities right now are undeniably challenging. But charity has always been about making a promise to the future – a commitment that outlasts any individual trustee, any particular moment, any specific method of delivery.

I have set out in previous speeches that charity and trusteeship are acts of radical optimism – and it has never been more needed.

As your regulator we have no doubt how challenging it is at the moment: but charities have endured for centuries. They have faced into the intractable problems that others cannot solve, and made our country and the world a better place – often when facing our darkest times.

This generation of trustees, volunteers, charity workers I know from my many visits and discussions are every bit as determined, innovative, and remarkable as the giants of the past. You are the ones turning charitable purposes into reality every single day, often in the most difficult of circumstances.

That work matters. Your commitment matters. And we are here to support it.

Thank you."