Charity begins ...

A one word summary of the Charity Commission's regulatory oversight? Inadequate.

It’s been a while since I last posted – sorry everyone! Life got very busy with, amongst other things, a house move.

Another of those other things was a bigger piece of work about libraries. While researching it – helped by the fabulous Sharon who is a total whizz at unearthing all sorts of information – I couldn’t help but notice that the charity sector is not all it seems. It turns out that very little is as it seems when you look under the covers.

As I looked at the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), I started to wonder why this body even has charity status. The blurb on the Charities Commission webpage says:

Activities - how the charity spends its money

CILIP works for the benefit of the public to promote education and knowledge through the establishment and development of libraries and information services and to advance information science (being the science and practice of the collection, collation, evaluation and organized dissemination of information)

Is this true, though? Does CILIP “establish” libraries, or does it just represent its members who are employed to operate libraries provided by local councils, schools, colleges and universities?

Does it focus on advancing information science? Or does it spend its money on other projects?

A quick look at the latest annual return suggests the latter. Kate Robinson, Chair of CILIP opens with:

CILIP’s attention in its 125th anniversary year has been on our contribution to society though positive action, prioritising economic and social wellbeing alongside a responsible and proactive approach to climate challenges.

Nothing there about public education and knowledge. And what does Ms Robinson mean by social wellbeing anyway? What is this “positive action”?

Reading on, it appears she means “equity and social justice”. Uh oh – I’m getting that sinking feeling.

Strategic priorities

We Are CILIP, our 5-year strategy (2020-25) and action plan sets out four strategic priorities:

• Equity and social justice

• Digital transformation

• Environmental sustainability

• Leadership at every level

Our strategy is under-pinned by a business plan that aims to:

1. help us transition to a new business model following the sale of our premises in central London

2. deliver sustainable growth in membership and to drive value for our members

3. maintain and where possible grow our diversified/non-membership revenue streams

Now, it could be argued that CILIP needs to be on a firm financial footing to deliver public benefits that promote education and knowledge. Fair enough. But the focus of this annual return – and nearly all of its content – is about how best to represent CILIP members, and how to develop and raise the profile of CILIP as an organisation.

On page 8, the report authors briefly remember that they really ought to say something about their charitable objectives, but half a page later they’re back to advocating for members.

I really struggled to find anything at all that was a clear public benefit. Making librarians into an “agile workforce that is committed to enabling a huge range of different information users, communities, and organisations to succeed” doesn’t really cut it I’m afraid. By that token Tesco could be a charitable organisation because they are committed to ensuring that the nation’s food supply chain doesn’t break.

You might expect those whose bread and butter is the knowledge and information economy to see new trends coming down the line, but CILIP hasn’t been paying attention to the public’s loss of enthusiasm for DEI policies. Many of us simply wouldn’t agree that training librarians up in “anti-racism” – more accurately known as Critical Race Theory – is a public benefit. Nor that “anti-racist library collections” are useful.

At this point some readers might be thinking hang on a minute, we don’t want racist libraries run by racist librarians! Quite right. Neither do I. But Critical Race Theory (CRT) is to racism what Queer Theory is to sexism. And anti-racist doesn’t mean not-racist because a fundamental tenet of CRT is that western societies are founded on hierarchies of power, one of which is based on skin colour. It is axiomatic for CRT that white people (including children) are racist - we can’t help ourselves, apparently. So we must do the work to find racism everywhere it exists (which is everywhere, by definition) and root it out.

Back with CILIP, the explicit aim to “ensure public libraries use their spending power to embed anti-racist practice and to facilitate equality of access and outcomes” sounds distinctly political in nature. Ensuring that everyone has the same outcomes regardless of effort or ability is what equity means here; what could possibly go wrong? Is the Charity Commission aware that CILIP wants to dictate how public funds are spent?

Charitable status comes with significant benefits to CILIP. It confers tax concessions – not least gift aid on all donations. It allows CILIP to bid for Arts Council England funding too, with £172,000 awarded in 2023.

And it seems that once charity status is granted, organisations are then free to do whatever they choose with no effective oversight and very little danger of it being withdrawn.

Which isn’t too surprising. The Charity Commission claims to regulate charities, but there are nearly 170,000 registered charities in the UK and only 450 people employed by the Charity Commission. It doesn’t take very long, though, to read an annual report and compare it with the stated charitable aims for that charity.

Is it really too much to expect some alignment between the two?