The comments which follow have been prepared by Volunteering New Zealand which is a national association of regional volunteer centres and national organisations with a strong commitment to volunteering. These organisations cover emergency services, health, welfare, education, sport and recreation, conservation, special interests and advocacy. Members are all not-for-profit and most if not all would have current charitable status.

Volunteering NZ”s mission is to create an environment which supports, promotes, values and encourages effective volunteering by the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. Its vision is to be recognised as the national voice of volunteering and volunteers in this country. This is a different role from that of other organisations which speak on behalf of not-for-profit or voluntary organisations.

In this respect we would note that members of the governing bodies are usually all volunteers as would be many of the people who undertake operational duties including such functions as completing returns to statutory bodies such as the Charities Commission. Volunteering NZ is concerned to ensure that any compliance requirements introduced by the Commission are not so burdensome as to discourage people from volunteering for these roles. Our comments below reflect this objective.

The forms are long, requiring considerable detail to be provided by the organisations and those individuals who are officers. Some of the information is requested on a repeat basis even when it would be expected to be already recorded by the Commission. Some of the questions are unclear as to what is being requested. Additionally there are references which would not necessarily be understood by all who may be completing the forms. A prime example would be the references to ‘governing document’. There would be those who would not understand what this is referring to and an explanation should be included on the form itself. The various sections where questions or references are unclear are detailed below. We would also suggest the Commission produce guidelines on how to complete the forms. This may have to be included within the on-line version of the forms. The question has to be asked why so much detailed information is needed, particularly the detail about what sector organisations operate in, what they do and who benefits. It might be reasonable for this to be asked once at the time of initial registration. As this information will presumably be recorded within the Commission’s data base, it should not have to be repeated by organisations every time they are making an annual return or notifying a change of in their details.

We have major concerns about the proposed additional charge for completing paper based annual returns compared with the charge for completing it on-line. This will penalise the smaller organisation with limited funds who may not have access to computers and certainly are not able to fund the provision of a broadband connection. The Commission’s charging regime should be looking to provide equity for all organisations who have to register with it to retain their charitable status and not its own convenience and cost structure. The Commission is after all intended to be a government agency set up to serve the community.

1. We propose that at the start of the form there be a suggestion as to documents (such as the constitution/rules) which would be useful reference documents to assist in completing the form.


2. “Governing document” – there will be those who do not understand this terminology. There should be added in brackets along side “(constitution, rules, or trust deed)”.


3. Quest. 5 refers to “the Companies Office registration number”. Many may not know what this is but would know that they have an Incorporated Society registration number or Charitable Trust number or Friendly Society number. The question should refer to these rather than the more general Companies Office reference.


4. Quest. 11 Establishment under an Act of Parliament – what does this mean? Does it just refer to special Acts of Parliament or would it include the Charitable Trusts Act. Some explanation of what is required needs to be included.


5. Quest 13 Trust income derived by trustees – What is this question asking? We would not know how to answer the question. It needs a guiding explanation.


6. Quest 19 Rules relating to charitable purpose – Many rules would not include a specific provision which prohibits the private profit of any individual. Rather they would include in their Objectives or Purpose clause statements about what they will do which indicates their charitable purpose. The question should be reworded to reflect this reality.


7. Questions 20 – 24 – As noted in the general comments above, the Commission is requesting a lot of detail about organisation through these questions. Is it really needed? Under each group is a request for the organisation to record its main sector, activity, beneficiary. This organisation, Volunteering New Zealand, would not be able to make that distinction both in terms of its activities and those who benefit. Other organisations may have a similar difficulty.


8. Quest. 20 – This includes promotion of volunteering with fundraising. They are two very different sectors. Organisations involved in the promotion of volunteering are not fundraisers, other than to meet their own funding needs. Special fundraising organisations are different and separate. The two sectors should be separated.


9. Form 1 -top of Page 6 – repeat of attachment of the governing document. This is also repeated at the end of the document on page 7, which makes sense. The box at the top of page 6 is not needed. We note this extra repetition is not included in Form 2.

1. What is an Officer? Are they the named positions in an organisation’s constitution, eg president, secretary, treasurer or does it include all board members. The form needs to provide a definition of “officer”.



2. Quest 6 Date of Appointment – In many instances officers are elected, not appointed, so the question should be “Date of appointment or election”



3. Quest 7 Date of birth – is this information essential? If not the question should be dropped. If it is, the information should not be made available to the public or listed on the public register and a note to this effect recorded on the form.



4. Questions 11 and 12 Certifying an individual or organisation – The wording, particularly, in Quest 11 is clumsy and not all that clear. We suggest combining the questions along these lines
   Is certification being made for an individual person or Body Corporate – tick the correct box Individual
   Body Corporate
   
   

1. Use of forms for change of officers – Many organisations will need to complete this form each year as new officers are elected while at the same they will have to complete the annual return form. We suggest that there be provision for recording annual changes in officers by election through the annual return form so they only have to complete the one form if there are no other changes within the organisation.



2. Page 5 Box requesting governing document and minutes specifying the change -The change in sector, activity or beneficiaries may not have required a change in the governing document as the wording in the governing document may have already allowed the change to be made. If this box needs to be retained, it should record that the governing document needs to be provided etc, if it has been changed.

1. Quest 3 Recording Officers who need to be removed – As discussed in the general comments above, many organisations, particularly those with election of officers, will have annual changes to record. There should be an additional question for Officers who need to be added to the register and this form should provide for recording the names of both those added and removed in list form. If recorded on this form it should not be necessary to complete a separate Change Form although there would need completion of Officer Declaration Forms for new officers.



2. Questions 6 – 11 Repeat of questions on sectors, activities and beneficiaries – If an organisation has changed its purpose and/or had a change in its sectors, activities and beneficiaries, it will need to complete a Change Form, so recording the same information on the Annual Return is an unnecessary duplication. If there has been no change to any of these items, they will be recorded in the Charities Commission database and again it would be an unnecessary duplication to record them again each year on this form. These questions should be deleted from this form.



3. Quest 16 Financial reports – Organisations are required to include a copy of its financial accounts with the annual return. This question will require the organisations to provide the same information, but in a stipulated format. If the format is the same as used by the organisation for its annual accounts, it will be simply an unnecessary duplication of information. If the format is different, it will cause difficulties for many organisations to effectively do a separate set of accounts to fit the Commission’s question. This will be especially so for smaller organisations reliant on volunteers to complete their reports. We strongly submit that this question should be deleted from the form and that provision of an organisation’s own financial report should be sufficient to meet the Commission’s needs. It is likely that in most instances, the Commission’s staff will simply be filing the reports received so two sets of financial information will be of little value. If, however, there were concerns about the information provided by a particular organisation, further detail could be sought from it by the Commission.