if any charity’s rationale for not being at least moderately open and transparent with relevant constituencies and the public is “we are afraid the CC will shut us down,” that is a charity most people would run away from fast, and for good reason
I do think a subtext of the reported discussion above is that the CC is not considered to be a necessarily trustworthy or fair arbiter here. “If we do this investigation then the CC may see things and take them the wrong way” means you don’t trust the CC to take them the right way. Now, I have no idea whether that is justified in this case, but it’s pretty consistent with my impression of government bureaucracies in general.
So it perhaps comes down to whether you previously considered the charity or the CC more trustworthy. In this case I think I trust EVF more.
I trust EV more than the charity commission about many things, but whether EV behaved badly over SBF is definitely not one of them. One judgment here is incredibly liable to distortion through self-interest and ego preservation, and it’s not the charity commission’s. (That’s not a prediction that the charity commission will in fact harshly criticize EV. I wouldn’t be surprised either way on that.)
When I looked at past CC actions, I didn’t get the impression that they were in the habit of blowing things out of proportion. But of course I didn’t have the full facts of each investigation.
One reason I don’t put much stock in the CC may not “necessarily [be a] trustworthy or fair arbiter” possibility is that it has to act with reasoning transparency because it is accountable to a public process. Its actions with substance (as opposed to issuing warnings) are reviewable in the UK courts, in proceedings where the charity—a party with the right knowledge and incentives—can call them out on dubious findings. The CC may not fear litigation in the same sense that a private entity might, but an agency’s budget/resources don’t generally go up because it is sued and agencies tend not to seek to create extra work for themselves for the thrill of it.
Moreover, the rationale of non-disclosure due to CC concerns operates at the margin. There are particular things we shouldn’t disclose in public because the CC might badly misinterpret those statements is one thing. There is nothing else useful we can disclose because all of those statements pose an unacceptable risk of the CC badly misinterpreting any further detail is another.
I do think a subtext of the reported discussion above is that the CC is not considered to be a necessarily trustworthy or fair arbiter here. “If we do this investigation then the CC may see things and take them the wrong way” means you don’t trust the CC to take them the right way. Now, I have no idea whether that is justified in this case, but it’s pretty consistent with my impression of government bureaucracies in general.
So it perhaps comes down to whether you previously considered the charity or the CC more trustworthy. In this case I think I trust EVF more.
I trust EV more than the charity commission about many things, but whether EV behaved badly over SBF is definitely not one of them. One judgment here is incredibly liable to distortion through self-interest and ego preservation, and it’s not the charity commission’s. (That’s not a prediction that the charity commission will in fact harshly criticize EV. I wouldn’t be surprised either way on that.)
When I looked at past CC actions, I didn’t get the impression that they were in the habit of blowing things out of proportion. But of course I didn’t have the full facts of each investigation.
One reason I don’t put much stock in the CC may not “necessarily [be a] trustworthy or fair arbiter” possibility is that it has to act with reasoning transparency because it is accountable to a public process. Its actions with substance (as opposed to issuing warnings) are reviewable in the UK courts, in proceedings where the charity—a party with the right knowledge and incentives—can call them out on dubious findings. The CC may not fear litigation in the same sense that a private entity might, but an agency’s budget/resources don’t generally go up because it is sued and agencies tend not to seek to create extra work for themselves for the thrill of it.
Moreover, the rationale of non-disclosure due to CC concerns operates at the margin. There are particular things we shouldn’t disclose in public because the CC might badly misinterpret those statements is one thing. There is nothing else useful we can disclose because all of those statements pose an unacceptable risk of the CC badly misinterpreting any further detail is another.