Mixed response to new public benefit guidance
February 2009
The Charity Commission published supplementary public benefit guidance for charities on 18 December 2008 following the extensive public consultation held earlier that year.
The guidance covers those charities whose aims include preventing or relieving poverty, or advancing education or religion or those that charge fees. It is aimed mainly at those parts of the sector for which the presumption of public benefit has been removed under the Charities Act 2006. The Commission has begun assessing the public benefit of some charities within these subsectors and is due to publish its findings in spring 2009.
The Charity Law Association was heavily involved in responding to the draft sub-sector public benefit guidance and specifically established four working parties to respond to it. A statement from the CLA to Caritas suggests there is still some way to go: ‘Issues raised by the CLA in its responses to the consultation have been included in the final versions. As an example, we note that the Commission has clarified which aspects of the guidance represent a legal requirement and which aspects are simply best practice advice. The CLA was disappointed though that despite the Commission acknowledging the “significant challenges” made to its analysis of the law by the CLA, those challenges were ignored in its published guidance, without explaining its reasons for doing so. In addition, the guidance continues to refer to “aims”, “purposes”, “charitable purposes” and “objects” whereas referring to objects throughout would have been much simpler and better understood.
Whilst the guidance generally is more user-friendly with helpful annexes, it is still a considerable burden for trustees to have to consider and digest all of the guidance applicable to their charity. We hope the Commission will continue to be as helpful as possible in this evolving period as trustees focus on, and evaluate, the public benefit that their charity provides. In addition, the Commission has stated that it will issue further supplementary guidance in the future, as well as finalising the guidance on the advancement of moral and ethical belief systems which is currently still in draft form so there is clearly more to come.’
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