Charities ‘scared to speak out’ during election campaign
An interesting spin on purdah in the build up to the election….
A charity leader has said voluntary organisations are too frightened to speak out about key policies during the election campaign and called on politicians to urgently “reset the negative environment” facing her sector.
Vicky Browning, who heads Acevo, which represents more than 1,000 charity chief executives, said many of her members had reported being “too nervous, too anxious and too scared about the repercussions” to enter the political debate.
She spoke of a chilling effect driven not just by 2014 lobbying legislation, sometimes referred to as the gagging law, but also an ominous culture in which charities fear being “slapped down” for speaking out.