Understandability and Transparency of the Financial Statements of ...

We have since February of last year started to process applications from
organisations based on two sets of criteria, and one is that you register with the
Charities Commission.
This was backed up by Interviewee 3 who was aware of an incorporated society refused
funding as they were not registered with the Charities Commission, and interviewee 51
who knew of applications for funding being declined due to the charitable trusts not
being registered as a charity.
New Zealand cases that related to charitable purpose before the enactment of the
Charities Act 2005 include DV Bryant Trust Board v Hamilton City Council [1997] 3
NZLR 342 where it was determined that charitable purpose is an evolving concept,
driven by changes in societal values (Tomlinson & McGlinn, 2004). It remains to be
seen whether the Charities Commission will allow for this evolution in their registration
of charitable organisations and broaden their interpretation of charitable purpose.
The monitoring that the Charities Commission now undertakes to determine whether the
activities of charities reflects their charitable purpose will be covered later in the
chapter. Before considering fiduciary issues with charitable structures, the „looseness‟
by which the Charities Commission is registering charities with similar names is
identified.
To register a company the first thing you have to do is register the proposed name of the
company to ensure that no one is using the name, and this is explicitly shown in the
New Zealand Companies Office first instruction regarding how to incorporate the
company (Companies Office, 2010). The Charities Commission does not appear to be
following this practice as, on doing some research on a charity whose Treasurer was
going to be interviewed for this study, the researcher found two charities with the same
name apart from the addition of the word „Maori‟, a fact the Treasurer and the charity
were unaware of:
No, [pause] we‟re this one. I didn‟t even know about this one. Oh, we better be
careful because this [the charity with the same name], is a Maori trust. Oh
goodness, have they been going since 1972 and we pinched their name? That‟s
really bad. Oh, [pause] because we use their name as a short form of our name.
I better check up on that because if we‟re using a name that‟s already being
used by a Maori group, then it‟s not very good. (Interviewee 23 T)
The registering of charities with similar names or causes is seen when doing a search of
the New Zealand Charities Register on the word „cancer‟, which produced 63 results.
The many names for the one cause can lead to confusion. The Charities Commission
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