With the end of 2016 fast approaching, we asked the UK's top civil servants to look back at the year, outline their goals for 2017 – and shed some light on their festive favourites. Paula Sussex, chief executive officer of the Charity Commission, takes part in our annual perm secs round-up
What was your highlight of 2016?
I have been hugely impressed that the team have managed to pull off both the day job and the transformation. They have dealt with increasing amounts of casework in both our compliance and enablement work, and a substantial increase in applications to register as a charity, and yet we’ve managed to speed up the registration process and launch a new online application portal. We’ve also made great progress on building our risk assessment and digital systems, which will go live next spring.
In amongst all that, we managed to navigate the Charities Act 2016 through parliament. The Act now gives us more powers to regulate effectively and close some loopholes in the legal framework.
What has been the most significant change in your organisation this year?
Not within our organisation but in the sector we regulate, we have seen a noticeable drop in public trust and confidence, which has dipped to the lowest level since we began tracking it in 2005. As the regulator, we believe that the best way to respond to this is to continue to focus on tackling abuse and mismanagement, but also to put more focus on supporting and guiding charities as they look at ways to strengthen their own governance.
What will be the biggest challenge of 2017 – and how are you preparing to meet it?
Managing increased demand within a declining budget! Our transformation programme will help by increasing our reach and impact with fewer staff. Developing digital services and digital communications is a big part of that; ultimately, we aim to create a one-to-one relationship with each of our 165,000 charities through a dedicated charity services portal. But this will still be a pretty busy regulator!
What was the best Christmas present that you’ve ever given or received? And the worst?
The best gifts I receive are books but the worst thing about that is that I rarely make time to read them!
More: Perm secs round-up 2016 – Britain's top civil servants review the year and look ahead to 2017