Ms Helen Martin:

When we talk about trust and confidence one of the main areas, and our main tool at the moment, is the register. The work is about ensuring the register has as much information as possible relating to charities in order that members of the public can check out the individual charity in which they might be interested and can see what the charity is about. Hopefully, the public can also take some confidence that the sector is regulated.

We are also working with the charities on the charities' governance code. This is a huge part of our strategic priorities over the next two years in particular when we will work with the charities on that. This is about getting the charities to engage with the tool that is available to them, which is the charities' governance code, and to increase standards of best practice in governance. We would hope to see that reflected in levels of trust and confidence.

We will be monitoring and doing our own research to establish a baseline early next year for what are the levels of trust and confidence. The members may be aware that in 2012 it was at the highest rate, which was 74%, but it had fallen quite considerably over the last years. In 2017 the level of trust and confidence was at 46%. I want to ensure that we establish a baseline and then look at that in subsequent years. In that way we can see if we can work out the impact of the work we are doing and see how it has assisted the charity sector.

On the other side, which is the compliance and enforcement piece, charities themselves will agree that they want to see the Charities Regulator holding charities to account when things are not being done correctly. This is a key focus over the coming years also, and especially on the resources side. New resources we get in over the next year certainly will be going into the compliance and enforcement area. I have said before that one of the big things is that we would have access to the accounts of all charities and that they would be presented in a very particular way that is specific to charities. This would give certain disclosures to charities with regard to what is suitable for them.