For charity donors, delivering maximum “value for money” means spending their money to deliver maximum benefits to others – the “public”.
But for commercial investors, delivering maximum “value for money” means spending their money to deliver the maximum amount of personal financial benefit – profit – back to them.
Back in 2020 I wrote a blog entitled “Not Fit for Purpose” – you can find it on the Small Charity Support website (https://www.smallcharitysupport.uk/index.php/charity-thoughts?view=article&id=27:fit-for-purpose&catid=12:about-small-charity-support) . I submitted it to one of the, then, SORP Review Panels, which responded “the thrust of your concerns about the current provisions of the SORP very much chime with our own“.
And the CEO of the Charity Finance Group is reported (in the Third Sector magazine) as saying: “ we need to break this long but flawed habit of shoehorning charities into regulation and legislation designed for the for-profit world “ (https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/trustees-major-charities-held-personally-liable-accounting-mistakes/governance/article/1722228)
If you go on to clause 6.18 of the SORP you’ll find it says: “…. These factors, together with the lack of a market comparator price for general volunteers, make it impractical for their contribution to be measured reliably for accounting purposes. Given the absence of a reliable measurement basis, the contribution of general volunteers must not be included as income in charity accounts.”
In the commercial sector, including the “value” of capital assets which can be sold off is important as a potential source of additional profit to investors. But most charity volunteers (including pro bono professional contributors) tend to object to being “sold off for profit” (sounds too much like modern slavery). So they are, in accountancy reporting terms, “valueless” and (as Stuart Davis pointed out in his response to your question) therefore do not need to be included in your charity’s annual accounts.
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