RSPCA told in letter to review its prosecution policies by Charity Commission

The RSPCA, Britain’s biggest animal welfare charity, has been officially asked to review its prosecution policies by the charities regulator after it spent hundreds of thousands of pounds bringing a prosecution against David Cameron’s local hunt.
Sam Younger, the Charity Commission’s chief executive, told RSPCA chief executive Gavin Grant in a letter today that his trustees had to review the charity's prosecution policies “given the amount of adverse publicity and the allegations of political bias that the charity has attracted as a result of the case”.

The news came hours ahead of the first ever Commons debate later tomorrow on the prosecution policies of the RSPCA when Attorney General Dominic Grieve will be urged to order an independent investigation of the RSPCA’s activities.

Senior executives from the RSPCA met Commission officials after a judge criticised the charity’s “staggering” prosecution costs when it took the Heythrop Hunt to court last month and asked whether the cash could be more "usefully employed".

The RSPCA spent £326,000 on the prosecution – nearly 10 times the cost of the defence’s £35,000 legal bill – some of it on external firms of lawyers when the RSPCA has its own legal team.

The Heythrop, with which Mr Cameron rode before the hunting ban, pleaded guilty to hunting a wild fox with dogs, claiming it could not afford to fight the charges. A former huntsman and huntmaster also pleaded guilty to the same charges.
After the prosecution MPs and peers wrote to the Charity Commission claiming that the RSPCA’s trustees had breached their duty of prudence by sanctioning the prosecution.

That in turn led to the Commission meeting with senior executives from the RSPCA to discuss the charity’s policy on prosecutions.

In the four-page letter, dated 28 January and seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Younger told Mr Grant: “Given the amount of adverse publicity and the allegations of political bias that the charity has attracted as a result of this case, there are issues we consider the trustees of the RSPCA should review for the future.”

These were that the “charity should ensure that it has fully considered the reputational damage to the charity of adverse publicity; fully assessed the risk of such publicity; and taken steps to mitigate such risk where possible”.

He added that “although we understand the reasons for the ‘independence’ of the charity’s prosecutions department (as described at the meeting), ultimately the trustees are responsible for the actions of the charity and we consider that the trustees should review the current arrangements to ensure that they are entirely satisfied with the criteria for prosecutors and the associated costs as well as with the level of objective oversight and supervision by the trustees”.

Mr Younger disclosed that the Commission had considered whether the RSPCA’s prosecution policies were “appropriate”, whether the Heythrop prosecution was “considered and conducted in line with those procedures” and if “the costs incurred by the charity were excessive and not justified by the prosecution and the outcome”.

The RSPCA argued that costs were high because of the volume of film of the hunt’s activities and because the RSPCA had to prepare to fight a full trial and hoped the prosecution would be a “deterrent” to other hunts.

Mr Younger cleared the RSPCA’s trustees of breaking charity rules by agreeing to fund the prosecution.

He said: “On the basis of the information available to us, the Commission does not consider that the trustees have breached their duty of prudence in the case of this prosecution.”

But he noted that while the RSPCA had dismissed the complaint about its prosecution as “politically motivated”, he added: “The charity must bear in mind that where it engages in areas that are politically sensitive its actions are likely to be called into question and complaints may be made to the Commission which we would have to take seriously.

“The trustees are under an obligation to ensure that they act within the law and their governing documents. The Commission will be concerned to see that they do so in a responsible way and within the scope of the Commission’s published guidance.”

The letter emerged a day before MPs are due to debate the RSPCA’s approach to prosecutions in the light of the Heythrop case.

Simon Hart MP, the former chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, will urge Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, to exercise his existing right to deploy the CPS Inspectorate to “inspect other prosecution bodies for which he has responsibility, or to inspect bodies where they are agreeable to voluntary inspection, and to undertake reviews of high-profile cases.”

Writing in The Daily Telegraph today, he says: “If it’s good enough for the CPS then surely its good enough for the RSPCA.

“By raising these questions we seek to preserve the valuable work of the RSPCA’s local staff and volunteers from being undermined by its over-zealous leadership.

“It’s time for the RSPCA to decide if it wants to be an objective and trustworthy prosecutor, or a campaigning political charity. It cannot be both.”

Last night Gavin Grant, the RSPCA’s chief executive, said it was “simply nonsense” to suggest that the charity was motivated by political bias, insisting that its trustees and members were from “all parties”.

He said: "We are a charity that relies on public subscription and have seen no diminution in funds [since the case].

"It is a matter for the trustees to reflect, as they have been requested, on whether they wish to review current arrangements to ensure they are entirely satisfied with the criteria for prosecutions.

"I suspect the trustees will find themselves entirely satisfied - they were kept informed all the way on the Heythrop Hunt and had they decided this was not something they did wished to pursue, they could have taken that decision.”