Ms Susanna Lyons:

This is the balance between being a regulator and overstepping. These are independent legal entities. It is up to the boards and executive to decide how and when they are going to reinvest.

Certainly, when we sit down with organisations and we see very high cash balances, we ask if that is the most effective use of resources, whether they be charitable resources or housing resources. For the larger organisations, it would be asked if that fits with its treasury management policy. There seems to be no benefit to an organisation just holding on to such moneys and not reinvesting and providing more homes where that type of money is available to invest in a community or parish to deliver more. In some cases it may be that they do not have the capacity to do so themselves. They may in fact be run by volunteers.