# Charity Commission withdraws criticised Covid-19 guidance

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/03/16/charity-commission-withdraws-criticised-covid-19-guidance/
- Published: 2020-03-16T07:23:38+00:00
- Author: Melanie May

**The Charity Commission has withdrawn its Covid-19 guidance advising charities 
that they might have to report a serious incident if affected by the pandemic.**

The Commission issued the advice last week, which said:

> “The virus may result in incidents which should be reported as a serious incident
> to the Charity Commission, but these need to lead to a significant impact on your
> charity.”
> 
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The original guidance said this would include if a charity had to stop all or a 
significant part of its work due to coronavirus, as well as the cancellation of 
a fundraising event if it might result in significant loss of expected funds and/
or insolvency issues. The Commission also said that if coronavirus resulted in insolvency
issues for some other reason, this would also need to be reported.

However, the guidance drew criticism from the sector for its tone and for the extra
burden of work it would place on charities at a difficult time.

The Commission has now acknowledged that it was not as helpful as it says it intended,
and withdrawn it.

It now says:

> “During the current uncertainty surrounding the spread of coronavirus, charities
> are urged to check the [most up to date advice from Public Health England](https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-list-of-guidance).
> “We’ve received many enquiries into our call centre about the reporting process
> on RSI. Unfortunately, our initial response was not as helpful as we would have
> liked. Therefore, we would like to clarify that charities should continue to report
> serious incidents using the current guidelines and their own judgement and we 
> will advise if and when this situation changes.”

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