Offender Management Bill

I am extremely glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has raised a very important point about charities and their accepting contracts. My noble friend Lord Listowel mentioned earlier the presentation to the Cross-Benchers by the chairman of the Charity Commission in which she introduced her report Stand and deliver. In that she pointed out the dangers of charities changing their missions to respond to direction from funders. If they did, they risked their charitable status and their trustees would be liable for the changes. I looked in vain at the regulatory impact assessment to see whether there was any mention of the likelihood of an impact on the voluntary sector for accepting contracts under terms like this and what it might do for them and I found none. It is an important point which has to be thought through with great care before one launches into the wonderful idea that one can contract the voluntary sector to do all kinds of things which are desirable in a partnership sense, but one has to think of the integrity of the charities that are employed.