A charity whose chief executive has just been given a peerage by David Cameron has been criticised for allowing itself to be promoted in the Conservative manifesto. Tomorrow’s People, which works with the long-term unemployed and receives more than £6.7 million state funding per year from local councils, regional agencies and the London Development Agency, has been criticised by the Charity Commission for breaching “a fundamental principle that charities must remain independent from party politics and cannot give support to a political party.”
The manifesto included a full page picture of Debbie Scott, now Baroness Stedman-Scott after being ennobled in the coalition’s first list of peers. The arrangement was agreed with the Tories after David Cameron, as Leader of the Opposition, put Ms Scott forward for a peerage. At the time she insisted that her party connection would not affect the charity’s independence. She told Third Sector Review magazine: “We will continue to work across all parties to feed in potential solutions. I will do everything in my power to make sure Tomorrow’s People’s integrity is not compromised.”
However, without the charity’s trustees seeing the final details, Debbie Scott provided quotes and a picture of herself for the Tory manifesto in April. The charity has since complained to the Conservatives about alterations to the text and the prominence given to her words which, they insist, was changed “without their knowledge or consent”.
The Charity Commission says the trustees failed to discharge their duties and the charity compromised its independence by appearing to endorse Tory policies. It says its contribution could be seen as endorsing wider policies and condemns its “novel and high risk” approach by delegating the detail of the deal to subordinates, so the full board never saw the final version of its contribution.
In a statement the charity said: “Tomorrow’s People accepts the Charity Commission’s position on this matter and has since put in place more robust processes to ensure that the Commission’s guidelines are met”
