What is a charity regulator for?

What's a charity regulator for? And should we have one? Is a charity regulator the same as a charity evaluator? And if not what is a charity evaluator for?  Some thoughts have been rattling around my head and I am curious about what others think.
Australia and New Zealand are relatively newcomers to charity regulation. Canada and USA don't have any.  The grandfather of them all is the Charity Commission of England and Wales founded in 1853. It has been a lot in the press these days. It seems almost nothing it can do will keep everybody happy. Is it a policeman? It is a champion for charity? Should ask questions, be provocative, or simply, quietly and effectively 'regulate' the sector?

Meantime what are charity evaluators such as Guide Star, Charity Navigator and Give Well supposed to do? How do you in fact evaluate a charity? Do you look at its overheads? The proportion of donations that reach beneficiaries? Should its reserves be under the microscope? The Chief Executive's salary?

There are a handful of academic papers on charity regulation that are worth a read. One such has the nice title 'Light-handed charity regulation'. Wouldn't that be a nice idea some of you might say. However, for me it was useful in obtaining an overview to answer my opening question.

Regulation, in essence, is required to provide transparency and confidence in the charity sector to the public. The obvious analogy is a corporate regulator which ensures that investors in publicly listed companies can make appropriate decisions before risking their money. However, in a sense everyone's money is at risk with charities. Charities enjoy a privileged position with regard to not paying some taxes. Likewise donations to charities are privileged by the tax system. So it is in the public interest to ensure that charity is bona fide and the public's trust and money is not misplaced.

However the question of proportionality and the burden of regulation frequently arises in discussions. My bias on this question is reflected in my liking for the title of the academic paper above. That is because I believe that 90+ percent of those who devote part of their life to volunteering or working for charities nonprofits do so with noble intentions. Yes of course there are aberrations and rip-offs. But I wonder if we put these against the aberrations and rip-offs in the private sector which would be the more numerous and the greater in the value gouged?

Let's turn to charity evaluators. My understanding is that they are for enabling potential donors to get a look at certain key criteria regarding the charity's performance in order to help them make choices. The challenge here is what criteria and how to evaluate them?

It was with some relief that the sector recently read that three largest US evaluators now recognise that overhead is a poor measurement of a charities performance.

But what is a good measurement of a charities performance? And can you apply that measurement to each and every charity? Such is the diversity of the charity world, I struggle to think of a single measurement which could have universal application. Then there's the wider argument of whether quantitative measures provided effective evaluation? Or whether quantitative stories from beneficiaries and others on the ground are best?

I'd be delighted to hear and read what you feel because I think this is too important an issue to be left without debate.