Independence policy

Our position of independence

As a charity, we are required by the government to remain independent. This means that our trustees and staff must only make decisions in the interests of the charity, not any other organisation. This includes the government and faith organisations.

We maintain independence from faith organisations in these ways:

• the trustees and senior staff have a mixture of faiths and beliefs, including people with no faith. The trustees and senior staff and must declare any conflict of interest during the recruitment process. We do not recruit trustees who are ordained (or who have held an equivalent position within a faith organisation), or who are currently employed by faith organisations.
• the trustees and senior staff have a choice about whether or not they accept work from faith organisations, and how that work is delivered
• they only accept work which allows the trustees to decide who we offer services to and how we offer them
• the trustees take their own legal and financial advice
• the trustees draw up their own policies and business plan
• a trustee or senior staff who has a conflict of interest would not join in discussions or decisions
• the trustees and senior staff do not commit themselves, in any way, to carrying out the policies, theological positions and wishes of any faith organisation
• the trustees and Senior Staff never agree to conditions that undermine the confidentiality of their discussions (such as the presence at their meetings of an observer from a religious or faith community)
• the trustees have full freedom to make their own decisions on anything outside of the funding arrangement
• Conflicts of interest are named at beginning of all trustees meetings 

We maintain independence from the government in these ways:

• the trustees have a choice about whether or not they accept funding on the terms proposed by a governmental authority;  
• they take their own legal and financial advice
• they develop their own policies and business plan
• they conduct arm’s-length negotiations with the governmental authority, usually through a third-party funder
• a trustee who has a conflict of interest would not join in discussions or decisions
• we only accept funding which allows the trustees to decide who we offer services to and how we offer them
• the trustees never commit themselves simply to carrying out the policies and wishes of the governmental authority
• the trustees never agree to conditions that undermine the confidentiality of their discussions (such as an observer from the governmental authority attending meetings)
• the trustees have full freedom to make their own decisions on anything outside of the funding arrangement

Diversity of income streams

If the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse relies too much on one income stream, it could stop us operating independently. This is especially true if that income stream is provided by one organisation.

Our trustees and senior staff work hard to make sure that we have a wide variety of income streams, including donations, grant funding and commissioning of services. This helps us to stop our independence being undermined, and means that where we need to refuse to work with an organisation, it won’t cause us to become financially insecure or have to stop operating our services.