National Audit Office - Charity Commission: The Regulatory Effectiveness of the Charity Commossion - HC 813

National Audit Office - Charity Commission: The Regulatory Effectiveness of the Charity Commossion - HC 813

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2013-12-04

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9780102987164

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The Charity Commission is not regulating charities effectively and there is a gap between what the public expects of the Commission and what it actually does. The NAO has concluded that the Commission does not do enough to identify and tackle abuse of charitable status. Between 2007-08 and 2013-14, the Commission's annual budget fell 40 per cent in real terms to £22.7 million but the number of main registered charities has remained fairly constant at around 160,000. In response to budget cuts, the Commission has reviewed how it works and successfully reduced demand for its services, but it has not identified what budget it would need to regulate effectively. The Commission makes little use of its enforcement powers, for example suspending only two trustees and removing none in 2012-13. And it can be slow to act when investigating regulatory concerns. The NAO found cases where periods of several months passed during which the Commission took no action. Furthermore, the Charity Commission does not take tough enough action in some of the most serious regulatory cases. It is also reactive rather than proactive, making insufficient use of the information it holds to identify risk. The Charity Commission needs to think radically about alternative ways of meeting its objectives with constrained resources. It also needs to make greater use of its statutory powers in line with its objective of maintaining confidence in the sector; and develop an approach to identify and deal with those few trustees who deliberately abuse charitable status. This report publishes alongside another NAO report, the Cup Trust.


The Role of the Charity Commission and Public Benefit

The Role of the Charity Commission and Public Benefit

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780215058782

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This report into the implementation of the Charities Act 2006 finds the Charity Commission being asked to do too much, with too little. The charitable sector is at the heart of UK society, involving millions of people and £9.3 billion received in donations in 2011/2012. Around 25 new applications for charitable status are received by the Charity Commission every working day. Among the reports findings are: one of the keys tests set by the Charities Act 2006 for determining charitable status-the public benefit test-is critically flawed; the Government should revise the statutory objectives for the Charity Commission, to allow the Commission to focus its limited resources on regulating the sector; the proposal to increase the financial threshold for compulsory registration of a charity with the Charity Commission should be rejected; charities should publish their spending on campaigning and political activity. PASC criticises the way the Charity Commission has interpreted public benefit under the Act. The Committee also considered the impact of face-to-face fundraising, or "chugging"-on the street or on the doorstep-and warns that self-regulation has failed so far to generate the level of public confidence which is essential to maintain the reputation of the charitable sector. The evidence was clear that the regulation of fundraising remains a concern for many members of the public. Two in three people have reported feeling uncomfortable as a result of the fundraising methods used by some charities.


Regulating Charities

Regulating Charities

Author: Myles McGregor-Lowndes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-04-07

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1317190580

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In this volume charity commissioners and leading charity policy reformers from across the world reflect on the aims and objectives of charity regulation and what it has achieved. Regulating Charities represents an insider’s review of the last quarter century of charity law policy and an insight for its future development. Charity Commissioners and nonprofit regulatory agency heads chart the nature of charity law reforms that they have implemented, with a ‘warts and all’ analysis. They are joined by influential sector reformers who assess the outcomes of their policy agitation. All reflect on the current state of charities in a fiscally restrained environment, often with conservative governments, and offer their views on productive regulatory paths available for the future. This topical collection brings together major charity regulation actors, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with contemporary third sector policy-making, public administration and civil society.


National Audit Office - Charity Commission: The Cup Trust - HC 814

National Audit Office - Charity Commission: The Cup Trust - HC 814

Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2013-12-04

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9780102987171

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The Charity Commission did not properly consider whether The Cup Trust met the key legal requirement of being within the jurisdiction of the High Court of England and Wales before registering it as a charity in 2009, and was slow in handling the case. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that The Cup Trust had been set up as a tax avoidance scheme. The Cup Trust submitted claims for £46 million Gift Aid on £176 million of payments from participants to the scheme, but gave just £152,292 to charitable causes between April 2009 and March 2013. The Gift Aid claims have not been paid. The Charity Commission did not give sufficient consideration to issues which might have enabled it to open a statutory inquiry into the Cup Trust in March 2011, and that it was slow to appreciate the potential impact of the case on public confidence in charities, which it has a statutory duty to increase. The Charity Commission did not take sufficient account of the scale and nature of the tax avoidance scheme in its case strategy, was narrowly focused on the legal position and paid insufficient attention to the wider issues of public detriment, which it would have been appropriate to pursue further.


Public Benefit in Charity Law

Public Benefit in Charity Law

Author: Jonathan Garton

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-09-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199550265

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This comprehensive analysis of the legal principles and practical applications of the public benefit test in charity law in the UK provides essential guidance on a fundamental and hotly debated area of law. It also includes comparisons with Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.


Equity and Trusts Law Directions

Equity and Trusts Law Directions

Author: Gary Watt

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 0198709862

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'Equity and Trusts Law Directions' is an authoritative yet lively text with an emphasis on explaining clearly the key topics covered on equity and trusts courses. Rich learning features demonstrate how the law of equity and trusts is applied in the real world, and why it is such a stimulating and exciting field.


The Idea of Arbitration

The Idea of Arbitration

Author: Jan Paulsson

Publisher:

Published: 2013-11

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0199564167

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Providing a theoretical examination of the concept of arbitration, this book explores the place of arbitration in the legal process and examines the ethical challenges to arbitral authority and its moral hazards.


The Status of Religion and the Public Benefit in Charity Law

The Status of Religion and the Public Benefit in Charity Law

Author: Barry W. Bussey

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2020-02-29

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1785272683

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'The Status of Religion and the Public Benefit in Charity Law' is an apologetic for maintaining the presumption of public benefit for the charitable category ‘advancement of religion’ in democratic countries within the English common law tradition. In response to growing academic and political pressure to reform charity law – including recurring calls to remove tax exemptions granted to religious charities – the scholars in this volume analyse the implications of legislative and legal developments in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In the process, they also confront more fundamental, sociological or philosophical questions on the very nature and role of religion in a secular society that would deny any space for religious communities outside their houses of worship. In other words, this book is concerned with the place of religion – and religious institutions – in contemporary society. It represents a series of concerns about the proper role of the state in relation to the differing beliefs of citizens – some of which will quite rightly manifest in actions to benefit the wider society. This debate, then, naturally engages with broader issues related to secularism, civic engagement and liberal democratic freedoms.


The 'New' Public Benefit Requirement

The 'New' Public Benefit Requirement

Author: Mary Synge

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-08-27

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1509901531

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This book examines the 'public benefit requirement', which provides that a charity's purposes must be for the public benefit. This requirement was given statutory force by the Charities Act 2006, which also provided that 'public benefit' is to be construed in accordance with existing case law and not presumed. The author examines guidance published by the Charity Commission in 2008 and 2013 and measures its accuracy against principles extrapolated from case law, with a focus on fee-charging charities, and independent schools in particular. She also considers the implementation of the Charity Commission's public benefit assessments of independent schools during 2008–10. The book offers a comparative study of the law relating to public benefit in Scotland and presents an analysis of the decision of the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery) in proceedings brought by the Independent Schools Council and Attorney General in 2011. It also considers subsequent reviews of the 2006 Act by Lord Hodgson and the Public Administration Select Committee and the Government's response to those reviews in September 2013. The fact that the law automatically bestows certain privileges on charities, including tax exemptions, means that the charitable status of fee-paying schools has proved particularly contentious and was described by Lord Campbell-Savours as making 'an absolute nonsense' of charity law. Here, the author asks whether the public benefit requirement, as enacted and interpreted, has succeeded in bringing any sense to our law of charity in recent years.