Press release: Charity Commission discharges interim manager of Muslim Aid

The Charity Commission has discharged Michael King of Stone King as Interim Manager (IM) of the charity MA 1985 (registered charity number 295224). (This charity was formerly known as Muslim Aid – “the charity”).

In November 2013, the regulator opened a statutory inquiry into the charity to examine a number of financial irregularities relating to areas of the charity’s overseas activities. In January 2015, as part of the investigation the Commission issued an order requiring the charity to improve its governance and financial management. The charity was given 12 months to comply with the order. The Commission kept its inquiry open to monitor the charity’s progress and ensure its compliance.

The charity co-operated with the Commission throughout the inquiry and monitoring phase, but during the continued engagement it became clear that the charity was not able to resolve matters and comply with the order itself. As a result in October 2016, the Commission used its powers under the Charities Act 2011 to appoint Michael King as IM of the charity. At around the same time, the charity also appointed a new Chief Executive who committed to working with the IM and resolving matters. Since the Interim Manager’s appointment, he has conducted a thorough governance and infrastructure review of the charity and its activities, resulting in the incorporation of MA 1985 (295224) into a new Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) – Muslim Aid (registered charity number 1176462).

The IM has overseen the dissolution of MA 1985 (295224) (removed from the Register of Charities 1 February 2018) ensuring the transfer of all assets and liabilities to the CIO, Muslim Aid (1176462) and setting up a new trustee board which took office from 31 January 2018.

The new board of trustees, working with the CEO Jehangir Malik OBE and his senior team, will be responsible for managing and overseeing the implementation of future improvements required to ensure that the charity moves forward in a compliant manner and on a positive footing to continue its charitable work.

The Commission will be shortly closing its investigation and issuing an action plan to the new trustees to ensure that they build on the good progress made so far and continue to improve the charity’s governance and financial management, especially those relating to the management of Muslim Aid CIO’s country offices. The Commission will monitor the charity’s continued progress to ensure it complies with the action plan. The regulator will consider further use of its statutory powers if the charity does not continue to make timely and sufficient progress or fails to comply with the action plan.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were, which will happen in due course.

Ends

Notes to editors

1. The Charity Commission is the regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work, see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.