Barnabas Fund put under interim managers by regulator

On 19 June 2026, the Charity Commission announced that Edwina Turner and Catherin Gibbon of Anthony Collins LLP had been appointed as interim managers of Barnabas Fund, also known as Barnabas Aid. The order was made the day before, on 18 June, under section 76(3)(g) of the Charities Act 2011, and it places them in charge to the exclusion of the charity’s trustees. (gov.uk) If you are wondering how serious that is, the short answer is: very. In plain English, the people who would normally run the charity have been stepped aside for now, while outside professionals take control during an ongoing regulatory investigation. (gov.uk)

The background matters. The Charity Commission opened its statutory inquiry on 17 September 2024 and announced it publicly on 3 October 2024, saying it was examining serious governance and financial concerns. Those concerns included allegations of unauthorised payments to some current and former trustees and people connected to them; the earlier notice also said the inquiry would look at possible unmanaged conflicts of interest, the influence of the charity’s founders, and its relationship with a US-based subsidiary called Nexcus. (gov.uk) **What this means:** a statutory inquiry is the Commission’s formal investigation tool for charities in England and Wales. According to the regulator’s own guidance, opening one is not, by itself, a finding of wrongdoing; its job is to establish the facts, protect the charity where needed, and get it back onto a secure footing. (gov.uk)

Interim managers are one of the strongest protective powers the Commission has. Its guidance says it can appoint an interim manager only after opening a statutory inquiry, and only when it is satisfied there has been misconduct or mismanagement, or that it is necessary or desirable to protect the charity’s property. (gov.uk) That appointment is meant to be temporary and protective, not a final verdict. The Commission says an interim manager can either work alongside trustees or replace them for a time, and that it will only make the move after weighing other options and deciding the step is proportionate. In most cases, the charity itself pays the interim manager’s fees. (gov.uk)

At Barnabas Fund, the job is broad. The Charity Commission says the interim managers will take over administration, assets, records, banking and governance; look into past decisions and related-party arrangements; protect and, where necessary, recover assets; and sort out governance before reporting back to the regulator. (gov.uk) That tells you this is not just a paperwork check. It is about who controls the money, who can see the records, whether past decisions stand up to scrutiny, and whether the charity’s rules are actually being followed. (gov.uk)

When we hear the word governance, it can sound distant. In charity law, it is much simpler than that: trustees are the people with independent control over a charity and legal responsibility for how it is managed and administered. The Charity Commission’s trustee guidance says they must act in the charity’s best interests, manage resources responsibly, put proper financial controls in place, manage risk and deal properly with conflicts of interest. (gov.uk) That is why conflict rules matter so much. The Commission says a conflict can arise where a trustee, or a person or organisation connected to them, could benefit from a decision. If conflicts are not managed properly, decisions can be challenged, charities can lose money, public trust can be damaged and the regulator may treat the problem as evidence of misconduct or mismanagement. (gov.uk)

The register entry for Barnabas Fund now carries a regulatory alert. It also shows reported income of £16,536,572 and expenditure of £16,833,573 for the year ending 31 August 2024, alongside 24 employees and 5 trustees. (register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk) **Why this matters:** if you donate to a charity, this is the part worth holding onto. Governance is not a side issue. It is the check on whether money, records and decision-making are protected well enough to serve the people a charity exists to help, and the Commission’s trustee guidance warns that weak controls can expose assets and beneficiaries to harm or undue risk. (register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk)

What happens next is less dramatic, but just as important. The inquiry is still ongoing, and the Charity Commission has not published final findings. Its guidance says the purpose of an inquiry is to establish the facts, and its earlier notice stressed that opening an inquiry is not in itself a finding of wrongdoing. The regulator also says it is its policy to publish a report when an inquiry ends. (gov.uk) For readers, there is a wider lesson here. Good governance is not code for boring committee business; it is how a charity proves that trust, power and money are being handled properly. When that breaks down, the regulator can step in hard, and Barnabas Fund is now a clear example of what that looks like. (gov.uk)