Ms Madeleine Delaney:

There are probably two aspects I need to address in relation to that. The first is the communication itself and the tone and content. That is feedback we have received and it is something we will look at and we want to address. Where something is an offence, we are obliged to warn people of the potential consequences but I fully accept there are ways in which you can do that. That is the first point.

Without talking about anybody specifically, we would never tell anybody to shut down. I refer to what would have happened in the type of cases the Deputy is talking about. You cannot call yourself a charity if you are not on the register and you cannot let people believe you are a charity if you are not on the register. If we find that somebody is either deliberately or mistakenly calling themselves a charity, we point this out to them and tell them they cannot do that or they can apply to the register in which case when they are registered, they can call themselves a charity. That is the distinction.

We are not saying these people are not doing good, they are not needed or that there is anything untoward in their behaviour. We are simply saying you cannot call yourself a charity if you are not on the register of charities or you cannot collect money as a charity. What I imagine was said there was that they could not continue to call themselves a charity, not to shut down operations because that is not within our gift-----