More guidance to help charities demonstrate how they benefit the public

(Immediate Release - 17 December 2008)

The Charity Commission, the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, has today published on its website supplementary public benefit guidance for charities whose aims include preventing or relieving poverty, or advancing education or religion, and those that charge fees. This is in addition to the general public benefit guidance issued in January 2008 for all charities, and all guidance can be found at www.charitycommission.gov.uk.

The new guidance has been published following extensive public consultation earlier this year. To accompany the guidance the Commission has published a summary of the responses with a commentary of how it dealt with them in the revised supplementary guidance. It has also published a statement of the basis for the Charity Commission’s role and actions in relation to public benefit.

Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charity Commission said;

“This additional guidance provides more help for charities to show how they benefit society. Not only is it now a legal requirement for all charities to demonstrate how they benefit the public, but also our own research shows that the public expects charities to be clear about what they do and to be accountable and transparent at all times.

The general guidance which we published in January is the key document for all charity trustees, but I would encourage them to consider this additional material published today. Once again we have carried out extensive consultation and the feedback we have received has been very valuable. We will be doing further work in the New Year to ensure charities are aware of these additional materials.”

The supplementary guidance is mainly aimed 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 sub-sectors and is due to publish its findings in Spring 2009. As well as assessing whether the individual charities meet the public benefit requirement, this work will identify wider themes and points of interest for those sub-sectors.

All guidance and resources are available at www.charitycommission.gov.uk along with the first online examples of annual reports and further details of the first public benefit assessments and the legal underpinning for the guidance. All charities in England and Wales are required to start reporting on the public benefit they provide from 31st March 2009.

Ends.

Notes to Editors

The Charity Commission is the independent regulator for charitable activity in England and Wales. See www.charitycommission.gov.uk for further information or call our contact centre on 0845 300 0218.

1. The four sets of supplementary guidance published on our website are on:

The Advancement of Religion for the public benefit
The Prevention or Relief of Poverty for the public benefit
The Advancement of Education for the public benefit
Public Benefit and Fee-charging.

2. An additional consultation on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Moral or Ethical Belief Systems was launched on 4th September, and closes on 5th January 2009. Further consultations on draft supplementary guidance on the public benefit of charities with other charitable purposes, such as animal welfare and human rights, will follow.

3. In total there were 675 responses to the four consultations:

58 responses to the consultation on Public Benefit and the Prevention or Relief of Poverty
165 responses to the consultation on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Education
189 responses to the consultation on Public Benefit and Fee-charging
263 responses to the consultation on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Religion

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