A lawyer who ran aid missions to help Bosnian Muslims has been appointed chairman of the UK’s charity watchdog.
Barrister Orlando Fraser, who has been volunteering on aid missions for more than 30 years, pledged to ensure the Charity Commission is “fair, balanced and independent”.
Mr Orlando’s involvement in the voluntary sector stretches back to 1992, when he took an aid convoy to Bosnia to help its Muslim population during the Yugoslav Wars.
Mr Fraser has also supported the Rugby Portobello Trust children’s — a youth and family support charity. The trust helped support those affected by the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in west London, in which 72 people were killed.
He has been a barrister for 28 years and served for five years as a board member of the commission under former head William Shawcross, who is now the independent reviewer of the UK government’s Prevent anti-radicalisation scheme.
“Not only do I have great pride in the work of the Charity Commission itself, but I am also highly positive about the role the sector itself plays in society,” Mr Fraser said.
“I know from personal experience that it is often only the work that charities do that provides any hope or light when we have a disaster on our hands, whether it is tragedies like Grenfell, or the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We truly have a great voluntary sector, and it will therefore be both an honour, and a pleasure, to be leading its regulator over the next few years.”
“The commission’s role requires us to act as enforcer where needed, holding charities to account for meeting basic standards,” he said.
