What The Charity Commission Really Said About The Recruitment Junction

On 21 November 2025 the Charity Commission wrote to me about my complaint against The Recruitment Junction (TRJ). Their letter says they will not take regulatory action. That is the headline TRJ will probably cling to. It is not the whole story.

When you actually read the response, it does something very different. It quietly confirms that TRJ receives public funding, accepts that there are governance and information rights issues, and points those issues towards the courts and the Information Commissioner’s Office. The full letter is available to read here:

Charity Commission response regarding The Recruitment Junction (PDF)

A senior manager, a second look, and a clear paper trail

The letter is signed by a senior assessment manager at the Commission, someone who had not previously handled the case. That matters. It means my complaint was not just skimmed by a junior caseworker. A senior manager has now reviewed:

the original complaint of 7 July 2025
follow up emails of 10 and 14 July 2025
the Commission’s own earlier response of 15 August 2025

For anyone trying to suggest I rushed to publish without going through proper channels, the Commission itself has now confirmed the timeline, the persistence and the route I took. The file exists, on record, and it is not going away.

“Governance and integrity with public money at stake”

In my correspondence I described this as “a governance and integrity problem with public money at stake”. The Charity Commission chose to repeat that wording in their response. They did not correct it and they did not soften it. They simply said that, in their view, the risk level does not reach their intervention threshold.

That is an important distinction. The Commission is not saying everything is fine. They are saying they have to focus their limited resources on the most severe cases. Section 16(3) of the Charities Act requires them to use those resources in an efficient, effective and economic way. In plain language, they are forced to pick their battles.

TRJ do not get a certificate of good behaviour from this letter. They get a polite note that says, in effect, “this looks like a problem, but not one we can afford to spend enforcement time on.”

Pre action protocol obstruction, a matter for the courts

One line in the letter is easy to miss if you skim it. The Charity Commission confirms that the obstruction I reported around the pre action protocol is not something they can deal with and is a matter for the courts.

That is a quiet but significant acknowledgement. When a charity blocks a disabled service user, deletes data around the time of a Subject Access Request, and then refuses to engage with pre action correspondence, that behaviour sits firmly within the territory of civil courts, not charity casework triage. The regulator has now said so in writing.

Trustee minutes and SAR issues belong with the ICO

The letter also addresses the refusal to disclose trustee meeting notes and the way my Subject Access Request has been handled. Here, the Commission is very clear. Those concerns should be directed to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Again, this is not an endorsement of TRJ’s approach. It is the regulator recognising that these are information rights and transparency issues, which fall under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act. That is the ICO’s jurisdiction. A complaint has already been made and will continue to be pursued.

Public funding: the contradiction is now on the record

Perhaps the most useful sentence in the entire letter concerns funding. I told the Charity Commission that TRJ’s CEO had told me the charity did not receive public funding. The Commission checked the evidence for themselves. Their response states that the charity’s website and open source research make it clear that TRJ does receive public funding.

That does two things at once. It confirms that my description of events was accurate and it places the contradiction squarely in the CEO’s court. A charity that benefits from public money, while telling a disabled complainant the opposite, has a credibility problem. When the regulator has checked the funding picture and written it down, that problem becomes very hard to deny.

Nothing “trivial” about this

The letter acknowledges that their decision not to pursue the case further may be disappointing. It also confirms that the information I have provided will be kept on the charity’s records. Future funders, auditors, inspectors or investigators who ask the Charity Commission about TRJ will see that there is already a detailed complaint on file involving disability rights, data handling, and public funding.

So no, there is no enforcement action today. That is not surprising given the chronic under resourcing of regulators in the UK. What the letter does provide is:

independent confirmation that TRJ receives public funding
a written acknowledgement that there are governance and information rights issues
clear signposting to the appropriate legal and regulatory routes, including the courts and the ICO
a permanent regulatory footprint for this case on TRJ’s Charity Commission record

If TRJ or any of their supporters want to hold up this letter as proof that everything is above board, they will have to do so by ignoring most of its actual content.

Why this matters beyond one charity

This case has always been about more than one organisation in Newcastle. It is about what happens when a charity that trades on compassion and second chances uses public money while blocking a disabled service user, obstructing their data rights, and shutting down reasonable attempts to resolve problems.

The Charity Commission has now confirmed, in writing, that:

the situation involves public funding
questions about trustee transparency and data handling belong with the ICO
obstruction of the pre action protocol is something the courts can address

That is enough for me. The next steps sit with the public bodies that fund TRJ, with the ICO, and with the legal system. My role is to keep the evidence accessible, keep the record straight, and keep disabled people and other service users informed about how these systems actually work in practice.

The Commission have logged the case. The public can now read the letter for themselves. Funders and partners have one less excuse to say they did not know.