Results 11,241-11,260 of 27,087 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Why does the Regulator not get a copy of the audited report? The Comptroller and Auditor General does an audit of a Department or an organisation that comes under his remit. He does the audit, reports and there is an audited opinion. If an issue arises, it is there for everybody to see. In this situation, if one has a charity that has to carry out an audit - which they have to do - there...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: That is different to an audit report.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Why is that? Is it just not under the regulator's remit?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I will give Ms Martin one example, because this worries me. Console was a real controversy. All of us accept that the vast majority of charities do an excellent job where there are no difficulties and they provide an excellent service. There are some, however, whether they were outliers or not, that had very serious challenges. Console's problems were only highlighted when the HSE's...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: The regulator would be dependent on somebody making it aware of the concern-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: -----as opposed to the regulator getting a copy of the internal audit report as a matter of routine, which should be the case, and seeing for itself if there are problems. If they are flagged up, then there is even more reason for the regulator to have them. They would be in plain sight and the regulator could see them; it would not need any work done by the regulator. I want to get on...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I am not talking about theft or fraud. I am talking about lapses in governance or lapses in financial controls.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Is that not one of the problems? If one considers the history of the Console issue, it went on for so long and people were trying to figure out how did it happen for so long. It was because people were asleep at the wheel and it was not being examined in the way it should have been: credit card expenditure was off the chart; duplicate accounts were different for the same time period; and...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I get that but let us stick with Console for a second. Those concerns and that scandal emerged in 2018 as a consequence of internal HSE controls and complaints that were made. Did the HSE at any time inform the regulator that there were difficulties?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Was that not the start of the process in 2016? The Committee on Public Accounts dealt with this in 2018. During the period between 2016 and 2018, did the HSE contact the Charities Regulator at any point to say there were major problems? When the committee looked at that report, it categorised all the problems by severity as yellow or red. I think the Comptroller and Auditor General will...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: It actually said that it raised systemic problems for the HSE. What I am trying to establish is whether, throughout that process, the HSE ever contacted the regulator to say here is a copy of its internal audit and this is what it shows up. Did it suggest that such information would be of value to the regulator when it looks at what is happening and how it could put in place best practice...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: What about 2017 or 2018? At any point?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Is it the case that if at any point there is a criminal investigation into an organisation, the regulator's oversight stops?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I will get to the concerns unit. How many complaints were made? Ms Martin gave us figures from 2018 where there were 686 concerns. What would these concerns have centred on? Where would they have come from generally? Would it have been from staff within the organisations, or service users or members of the public?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Or statutory bodies? Where would they come from?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Of the concerns raised, how many times did any State body, be it the HSE or any other body, raise a concern with the regulator through formal processes? That is separate from people who work in the organisation or members of the public.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: Surely the regulator has a breakdown of the 686 concerns.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: That is the point. Surely there is an obligation. Take the HSE for example. Some of these are section 39 organisations which have service level agreements to provide certain services. Separately from that, if a charity was not such an organisation, it would be a charity that would be audited independently and an external audit would have to be done. There is, however, an element of an...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I am looking for a breakdown of that. Will Ms Martin write to the committee to outline a full breakdown of the source of the 686 concerns raised in 2018 and the State bodies involved? There is a lot of work to be done.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

David Cullinane: I wish to make one final point on university foundations. There seems to be an issue. While we get the accounts from universities, the Comptroller and Auditor General audits the money that comes from the voted expenditure but not the money that comes into the foundation accounts.