Towards Charity Accountability: Narrowing the gap between provision and needs?

Although charities currently play a rich and varied role in modern society, their continued success is dependent upon the public's trust. With respect to charity accountability, two key questions emerge: to whom is a charity accountable; and what form should that account take? Despite the widespread acceptance that charities should discharge accountability, there is limited knowledge of the relative importance of different stakeholder groups and whether the information currently being disclosed meets their needs. Using extensive document analysis and a survey of stakeholders, this research explores these issues in the context of the top 100 UK fundraising charities. Furthermore, it compares the results with much earlier research to identify changes over time.

UK charity accounting: an exercise in widening stakeholder engagement

Given the economic and social impact of the charity sector in the United Kingdom (UK), the importance of good governance has been recognised as a basis for underpinning effective and ef?cient performance, and for ensuring that charities meet the legitimate aspirations of key stakeholders. A major aspect of this is high-quality accounting and reporting. Over the past 25 years attempts have been made to improve this through the medium of successive, evolving versions of a Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) for charities. As a foundation for the future review of the SORP (expected to be published in 2015), the SORP Committee undertook its largest ever consultation on an accounting pronouncement. This paper presents the ?ndings of that consultation and, analysing them using stakeholder theory, concludes that this ambitious exercise facilitated much wider stakeholder engagement than had been experienced before and has the potential to legitimise further the SORP.

Acculturation and religion in schools: the views of young people from minority belief backgrounds

This paper aims to explore the relationship between religious identity, acculturation strategies and perceptions of acculturation orientation in the school context amongst young people from minority
belief backgrounds. Based on a qualitative study including interviews with 26 young people from religious minority belief backgrounds in Northern Ireland, it is argued that acculturation theory provides a useful lens for understanding how young people from religious minority belief backgrounds navigate majority religious school contexts. Using a qualitative approach to explore acculturation theory enables an in-depth understanding of the inter-relationship between minority belief youth’s acculturation strategies and their respective school contexts. Similar to previous research, integrationist attitudes generally prevailed amongst minority belief young people in this study. The findings highlight how young people negotiate their religious identities in a complex web of inter-relationships between their minority religious belief community and the mainstream school culture as represented through peer and staff attitudes, school ethos and practices and religious education. Young people demonstrated differentiated understandings of acculturation orientations within the school context, which they evaluated on the basis of complex perceptions of educational policy, interpersonal relationships and individuals’ motivations. Findings are discussed in view of acculturation tensions, which arose particularly in relation to the religious education curriculum and their implications for opt-out provision as stipulated by human rights law.