The Regulator for Charities in England and Wales

The Public Benefit Assessment Reports

(July 2009)

This section of the website contains the reports of the public benefit assessments we have carried out. Here you can find:

What are the reports about?

We have produced a report of the findings from each of the first twelve assessments. These describe the charity, examine whether its aims are capable of being charitable for the public benefit and summarise the extent to which it is currently fulfilling that requirement. Each assessment is carried out against the principles set out in our general guidance. We also set out our conclusions and any actions we are recommending to the trustees or requiring them to carry out.

For more information about how we carried out these assessments, please see the methodology.

The public benefit assessments reports

Our first programme of public benefit assessments included twelve charities: five fee-charging independent schools, four charities for the advancement of religion and three fee-charging residential care charities. We chose charities that had previously benefitted from the presumption of public benefit, and fee-charging charities because of the widespread public interest in what the public benefit requirement means in practice for these sorts of charities.

The following is a list of the public benefit assessment reports by organisation, with a link to the entry for each charity in the Register of Charities.

Charities for the advancement of religion:

Report
 Entry in Register of Charities
United Christian Broadcasters Limited Register of Charities
Church Mission Society Register of Charities
London Sri Murugan Temple Register of Charities
Tara Mahayana Buddhist Centre

Independent Schools:

Report
 Entry in Register of Charities
The Manchester Grammar School Foundation Register of Charities
Highfield Priory School Limited
Pangbourne College Limited Register of Charities
Manor House School Trust Ltd Register of Charities
S. Anselm’s School Trust Limited

Care home charities:

Report
 Entry in Register of Charities
Cornwall Old People’s Housing Society (also known as Perran Bay Home for the Elderly) Register of Charities
Penylan House Jewish Retirement & Nursing Home Cardiff Register of Charities
The Rest Bay Convalescent Hotel Register of Charities

Notes to the reports

We have provided a glossary of key terms used in the assessment reports, but you may find the following additional information useful as you read them:

  • How we calculated the value of means-tested assistance as a percentage of income. This figure appears in section B of most of the reports concerned with fee-charging charities. It is calculated by dividing the value of the charity’s means-tested assistance for the financial year during which the assessment was carried out by the gross fee income stated in the most recent accounts that were available during the assessment.

  • The categorisation of the opportunities to benefit. In section B of the reports for the schools, we use a number of categories to summarise what types of opportunities to benefit the schools provide for those who cannot afford the fees. We also use these categories in Annex A of the schools’ reports. We have derived these categories from those suggested in Annex C of Public Benefit and Fee-Charging as examples of ways in which fee-charging charitable educational establishments might provide access for people who cannot afford the fees to some of the benefits of the school.

  • The financial statements. At the end of section B of each report, we have included brief summary financial information. This is taken from the charity’s latest accounts. The purpose of this is to provide an indication of the size of the charity as a whole. The figures we have used include the income, expenditure and assets for the charity’s restricted funds and endowments. We do not use them for the purpose of calculating, for example, the extent of any assistance.

  • What we mean by ‘good practice recommendations’. Where good practice recommendations are offered, these are not legal requirements but are actions which trustees should take unless there is a good reason not to – see section B2 of Charities and Public Benefit.

Emerging findings report

The public benefit assessments of the twelve charities which participated in this first programme set out our conclusions for each individual charity. From this we have identified some general points of interest and initial observations about what we have learned from this exercise so far, alongside our emerging findings from carrying out the assessments.

We have drawn this together in our report Public Benefit Assessments - Emerging findings for Charity Trustees. Using general observations and illustrative case studies, this report provides trustees with:

  • good practice examples of ways in which charities have demonstrated that they meet the public benefit principles;

  • examples of where public benefit principles were not met, and why;

  • examples of what helped our public benefit assessments and what didn’t;

  • details of what changes we propose to make to improve the process of assessing public benefit.

This report is available here.

Other information

Elsewhere in this section of the website you can find the following information:

  • Introduction to public benefit assessments

  • Glossary of technical or specialist terms used in the reports

  • Methodology of how we carried out the assessments

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.