Charity Commission launches second inquiry into disabled people’s organisation

The Charity Commission has launched a second inquiry into a disabled people’s organisation (DPO) over “serious concerns” about the way it is being run.

Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) was already being investigated over its failure to meet its statutory reporting requirements, with an inquiry launched in 2022, after it was identified as being “persistently late in filing its accounting information”.

But the Charity Commission has now opened a much wider inquiry after “serious concerns arose regarding its general management and governance”.

Among its concerns is how LCIL’s trustees are complying with their legal duties relating to the administration, governance and management of the charity, and its accounts.

But the Charity Commission said it was now also concerned about whether trustees have the necessary “financial and strategic oversight”, including over the management and supervision of staff, and whether the charity is “operating for the public benefit” and is being managed correctly.

LCIL’s website was this week displaying a message stating that it was “under construction”.

But information about LCIL on Leicestershire County Council’s website suggests that the organisation is thriving, while a member of staff confirmed this week that it was still operating.

LCIL, which is based in Leicester (pictured), describes itself as a user-led organisation that works to support disabled people to “exercise choice and control for independent living”, and is run and controlled by disabled people.

It hosts a disability hate crime reporting centre, and says it runs legal surgeries in partnership with Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, and Nottingham-based barristers at Ropewalk Chambers.

Neither Irwin Mitchell nor Ropewalk had commented on the inquiry or their work with LCIL by noon today (Thursday).

The council website says that LCIL also runs a UK-wide independent living roadshow, Choice Unlimited, and a consultancy that offers its “expertise on a wide range issues faced by organisations across the private, public and voluntary sectors to respond to disability equality”.

In past years, LCIL played a crucial role in exposing the failure of Leicestershire police to take disability hate crime seriously in the years before a woman was driven to kill herself and her disabled daughter in October 2007, following a sustained campaign of harassment.

And from the early months of the pandemic, it was part of the Our Voices group of DPOs that promoted disabled people’s interests and provided mutual support.

Disability News Service contacted LCIL for a comment, but it had not responded by noon today.

Picture by Google

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…