Brown-friendly charity attacked over its independence
Friday, 18 July 2008 12:26 PM
A thinktank with extraordinarily close ties to prime minister Gordon brown has been rapped by the Charity Commission for lacking independence.
The Smith Institute retains a charitable status - giving it various tax exemptions - but the commission found trustees "did not adequately manage the risks to the independence of the institute and its reputation".
"When a charity operates close to the political environment, it must safeguard its independence and ensure that any involvement it has with political parties is balanced," said Andrew Hind, chief executive of the Charity Commission.
"Our inquiry has reconfirmed that the Smith Institute is a charity and has found that it is doing work of educational value. However, the Institute was vulnerable to the perception that it was involved in party politics - never acceptable for a charity."
Gordon Brown refused to co-operate with the Commission's inquiry/
"After 18 months of investigation, the Charity Commission report confirms what has long been suspected: that the Smith Institute was umbilically linked with Gordon Brown and the Labour Party," said shadow charities minister Greg Clark.
"Given the criticism of the Smith Institute centred on its relationship with Gordon Brown, it is shocking that Brown refused to respond to any correspondence from the Charity Commission during their inquiry."
The judgment is a serious indictment of a group that maintains almost unprecedented levels of contact with the higher echelons of the Labour party. Its meeting are held in Number 11, Downing Street, and the director of the Institute, Wilf Stevenson, is one of the prime minister's closest friends. So much so, in fact, that Mr Brown was best man at his wedding.
It was these ties with Mr Brown which provoked questions about the Institute's charitable status. Shadow chief secretary Theresa Villiers has also launched a freedom of information request to the Treasury asking for full details of Mr Brown's links with the group.
In its report, the commission said the institute is a charity and conducts work for the public benefit which is freely available and has educational value.
But it said trustees should be more engaged with the running of the institute given the nature of its activities and the political environment in which it operates.
Trustees will now have to implement a governance review and report back to the commission in six months.
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