Charity Commission appoints RSM at Merseycare but omits fees

The Charity Commission has excluded Merseycare Community Transport Ltd’s trustees from management and appointed Gareth Harris and James Dowers of RSM as interim managers without disclosing the price of the intervention. Its announcement of 3 November 2026 says their appointment took effect on 12 October 2026. The notice describes asset protection, financial and governance reviews and a viability assessment, but gives no fee rates, estimated total, cost ceiling or payment arrangements.

The announcement refers to the appointment order but does not reproduce it or publish the appointment letter. It names no Commission decision-maker and identifies neither an introducer nor the reasons for choosing Harris and Dowers. Time costs incurred and remuneration drawn are not disclosed. The protective purpose is stated; the financial terms are absent.

The rule is different from an insolvency appointment. Under section 76 of the Charities Act 2011, the Commission can appoint an interim manager after opening an inquiry where the statutory conditions concerning misconduct, mismanagement or protection of charitable property are met. Section 78 places the manager under Commission supervision. The Charities (Receiver and Manager) Regulations 1992 authorise the Commission to determine remuneration and provide for payment from the charity’s income. This is a regulatory intervention, not an administration appointment or a declaration of insolvency.

The Commission’s inquiry announcement, published on 6 August 2026, dates the inquiry’s opening to 26 June 2026. It identifies concerns about trustee numbers, accounting compliance and expenditure apparently outside the charity’s objects. These are matters under investigation, not findings reported against the charity in the appointment announcement. That distinction also prevents the intervention’s costs being justified merely by repeating the allegations.

The Commission’s approved-practitioner list includes RSM Restructuring Advisory LLP. Its Practitioner and Interim Manager Code of Practice describes a Commission staff panel agreeing an appointment’s scope and required skills, followed normally by invitations to tender. The Merseycare notice does not explain whether that process was followed or disclose competing proposals. Membership of an approved list does not answer why this assignment went to these practitioners.

The Code expects approved budgets and says the fee structure is confirmed in the appointment letter. The Commission’s recruitment guidance says fees are agreed in advance, normally paid by the charity and usually discounted; it also recognises Commission-funded and unpaid appointments. Merseycare’s announcement does not identify which arrangement applies. RSM’s appointment therefore cannot safely be described either as publicly funded or as a confirmed charge against the charity.

Approval is the Commission’s responsibility. The Code requires prior written consent for fee increases and prohibits retrospective changes to fees or rates. The regulations also permit remuneration to be disallowed, following notice and representations, where an office-holder fails to provide required security or satisfactorily discharge their functions. These are substantive controls. Their existence does not disclose the budget approved for Merseycare or demonstrate how individual bills will be examined.

There is a financial starting point, but not an outcome calculation. The charity’s financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2025 record turnover of £1,915,401 and an annual deficit of £69,197. Notes to those accounts record tangible assets of £281,148 and debtors of £235,171, including £71,888 due after more than a year. These historic accounting entries are not a current cash balance or an assessment of assets available after professional charges. They cannot establish what the managers inherited or what will remain.

The Code requires an initial report within a month and subsequent monthly reporting, including charity funds spent on the appointment and updates to property-value estimates where necessary. Those reports are generally confidential. The Commission therefore receives financial information that does not ordinarily become a public running account of the intervention. Reporting to the regulator and disclosure to those whose charity bears the cost are different things.

An earlier decision shows what financial disclosure can contain. In its Island Health Trust inquiry report, published on 3 July 2025, the Commission recorded that Helen Briant and Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins LLP worked alongside trustees to assess claims against former trustees. The report put their appointment’s cost at £10,149.88 plus VAT, paid from charity funds, and recorded an insurance-funded settlement of £165,000 without admission of liability. That limited legal review is not a price benchmark for taking over Merseycare. It demonstrates that appointment costs and financial recoveries can be reported together.

For Merseycare, the missing financial record comprises the appointment terms, approved costing proposal, payment authorisations and current asset assessment. The published account establishes who has control and what work is intended. It does not establish the cost of that work or the resources expected to remain for charitable purposes.

What it changes

• Management has passed from the trustees to Harris and Dowers under Commission supervision; this is not an insolvency creditors’ fee-approval procedure.
• The charity is the normal fee payer under the Commission’s guidance, but Merseycare’s actual funding arrangement remains undisclosed in its appointment notice. No personal liability of trustees is established by that notice.
• The intervention’s net financial effect remains unquantified. An approved budget, expenditure account and current asset valuation are needed before any defensible estimate can be made of what remains for the charity’s purposes.