The Regulator for Charities in England and Wales
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- Public Benefit Assessment Reports
- Open letter from the office of the Chief Executive
- Public Benefit: Statement of the basis for the Charity Commissons role and actions
- Charities and Public Benefit
- Public Benefit Reporting
- Charities and Public Benefit: Summary Guidance
- Commentary on the Descriptions of Charitable Purposes in the Draft Charities Bill
- Consultation on draft supplementary guidance on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Moral or Ethical Belief Systems
- The Prevention or Relief of Poverty for the Public Benefit
- The Advancement of Religion for the Public Benefit
- The Advancement of Education for the Public Benefit
- Explaining public benefit - key speeches
- Public Benefit and Fee-Charging
Public Benefit Assessment Report - Methodology
(July 2009)
What did we do to carry out the assessments?
The public benefit assessments were carried out within the framework and principles established by our guidance, which is available here:
- Charities and Public Benefit
- Public Benefit and Fee-Charging
- The Advancement of Education for the Public Benefit
- The Advancement of Religion for the Public Benefit
- The Prevention or Relief of Poverty for the Public Benefit
After we had selected the final group of charities to assess in September 2008, we carried out the following stages:
1. Information gathering, which included:
- Desk based research to review information we already held about each charity, the history of the charity, financial information from the last three years and any public information such as websites and leaflets. This happened between September and October 2008. We also reviewed reports from other regulators, such as the most recent Independent Schools Inspectorate or Commission for Social Care Inspection (now Care Quality Commission) report.
- A questionnaire to each charity with accompanying guidance notes in October 2008 (this is available to view here). The questions mirrored the principles of public benefit as set out in our guidance. This was also an opportunity for the charities to give us any information they felt would be relevant to the assessment.
- A visit to each charity between December 2008 and February 2009. The agenda for each meeting was based around the principles of public benefit as set out in our guidance and tailored to each charity’s individual context. This gave an opportunity for us to look in greater depth at issues raised by previous stages of the process.
- The production of a Summary of Information which was sent to each charity during March 2009 so they could check of the factual accuracy of the information we had gathered for use in our analysis.
2. Analysis of the evidence
We analysed and considered the gathered information in order to reach conclusions about whether each organisation’s aims were capable of being charitable for the public benefit and whether its trustees were in practice carrying out those aims for the public benefit.
3. Reporting our findings
Each charity was given the opportunity to check the final report in advance of publication on our website in July 2009, and was invited to give us feedback on the assessment process so we can improve it in the future.
Other information
Elsewhere in this section of the website you can find the following information:
- Introduction to public benefit assessments
- The public benefit assessment reports
- Emerging findings report
- Glossary of technical or specialist terms used in the reports
Contact details
If you have questions or comments about our public benefit assessment work please contact us.
Press and media enquiries should be directed to the press office.