Charities commission: my job is to keep them transparent, efficient

Charities exist to help those in need and they gather resources to do so. Those resources consist of the time and money donated to charitable causes.

I believe the ACNC should assist donors to fulfil their charitable intentions. The commission can do this by helping the donor market drive the charity dollar to its most efficient and best uses.

There are many specific initiatives the commission will carry out in the next five years using its skills and resources.

It already gathers essential information about the performance of charities.

Five years of data for tens of thousands of charities is ripe for a deep dive to analyse weak spots and risks, as well as strengths, in charity performance.

At present, donors using the ACNC website can find a charity but have to search deeper for relevant information contained in an annual report or financial statement. It would help donors if some of this information were to the fore.

Charity performance is not the only criterion for choosing a charity or charitable cause but it does count.

For example, it is likely ­crucial to donors and taxpayers the amount of government funding received by a charity. This ­information should be available at the press of a button.

At present, donors using the ACNC website can find only a charity whose name they know, which is essential for verification, but not much else.

It would be good to see what other charities operate for the same cause. I want to have the ACNC develop and apply a taxonomy of charitable causes to the ACNC website.

Donors can search by their favourite cause any number of charities that may work for them. These searches should begin to reveal gaps or overcrowding in the ­market.

Charity merger and acquisitions may start to take place as a result of this new information. These changes will not be driven by the regulator but by donors making choices.

At present, the ACNC is constrained by law as to how much it can reveal about its decisions, for example, to revoke a registration. The ACNC should be able to publish reasons for revocation of registration and other important decisions, just as occurs for instance with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

Speaking of which, Charity Commission chief executive Helen Stephenson said at the Charity Law Association's annual conference last month: "Charities are neither our friends to be let off the hook, nor foes to be fought. We are their regulator …"

Quite so.