Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance

(October 2007)

Public Benefit' is the legal requirement that all charities must have charitable purposes which are for the public benefit. Our recent Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance ended on 6 June. We are now analysing the responses. We wish to thank everyone who has contributed to our consultation. We aim to publish our public benefit guidance - charities and public benefit - in January 2008.

You can still view our consultation material and a summary of responses to our consultation below.

Once we have published our public benefit guidance we will begin a series of further consultations on the effect of the principles of public benefit set out in our draft guidance for specific types of charity (or 'sub-sectors'). Our first set of sub-sector consultations will be on:

• Charities for the prevention and relief of poverty
• Charities for the advancement of education
• Charities for the advancement of religion
• Fee-charging charities

If you are involved with a charity which falls within one of these sub-sectors and/or are generally interested in any of those particular topics, and would like to be notified when the sub-sector consultations begin, please send your details (either a postal address or, preferably, an email address) marked 'Public Benefit Consultations' and specifying which consultation(s) you are interested in, to:

Charity Commission Direct
POBox 1227
LIVERPOOL
L69 3UG

Email

Public benefit guidance

The Commission has published a revised and updated timetable for its public benefit guidance for charities, alongside a summary of responses to the draft guidance on the principles of public benefit.

Revised Timetable for our Public Benefit Consultations:

January 2008	General public benefit guidance for all charities published
January/February 2008	Start of three month consultations on draft supplementary guidance on public benefit for Charities for the prevention and relief of poverty Charities for the advancement of education Charities for the advancement of religion Fee-charging charities
Late March 2008	Expected date on which the public benefit provisions in the Charities Act 2006 come into force (sections 1, 2, 3 and 5)
July-December 2008	Supplementary guidance on public benefit published
Late March 2009	Charities will begin reporting on public benefit as part of their annual reports to the Commission from this date

These dates will be reviewed as the work progresses and may vary, for example depending on the volume and nature of responses to further consultations.

Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance – a summary of responses

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Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance

HTML | English PDF | Welsh PDF

Analysis of the law underpinning Charities and Public Benefit

This explains the legal underpinning for the principles of public benefit set out in our draft guidance

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Public perceptions of public benefit

A report prepared by Opinion Leader, commissioned by the Charity Commission, on what the public understands and expects on issues related to public benefit

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Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance - Feedback Questionnaire

An online survey about the way in which we have conducted our public benefit consultation

Public Benefit Reporting and Assessment - Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment

This assesses the impact for charities of the proposals set out in our Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance for ways in which we might assess the public benefit of existing charities and ways in which we think charities might report on how they meet the public benefit requirement

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Dame Suzi Leather article for the Guardian on public benefit

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Dame Suzi Leather to the CLA public benefit conference - keynote speech

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