ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the initial phase of the modernization of the Commission at the end of the twentieth century. By that time, there was general agreement that the Commission had sunk to a low ebb after years of neglect. The chapter focuses on the programme set up to reform the Commission and its implementation. It outlines the programme was based on a systematic review of the powers of the Commission and the way they were being used. The chapter explains that the basis for modernization did not involve notions of regulation, far less an aim of turning the Commission into the "regulator of charities", as it has subsequently become designated. It describes the way in which the Commission's thinking about its proper role and the appropriate form of accountability for charities informed the modernization programme and its implementation. Regulation makes the bodies concerned liable to enforceable intervention by the regulator one may call this "enforceable accountability".
