Commission unveils examples of public benefit reporting

Finance | Ian Allsop | 11 Nov 2008

The Charity Commission has published its first fictional examples of public benefit reporting to give charities an idea of how to do it.

The online examples of trustees' annual reports (TARs) aim to show how reporting on public benefit sits within the existing structure of TARs and illustrates how the new version has been adapted to include public benefit reporting.

The examples will also show how a small charity can report appropriately on its public benefit without having to go into complex levels of detail. Each public benefit principle has a one-click direct link to the TAR example of how it is met.

Andrew Hind, the Commission's chief executive (pictured), said the examples show how straightforward reporting on public benefit can be.

Develop own style

"We don't expect charities just to treat them as templates, but hope they find them a useful tool in building and developing their own reporting style. I hope these first examples help reassure charities about the practical ways in which the reporting requirement can be clearly achieved."

The Charities Act 2006 introduced a requirement that all charities must report on the public benefit they deliver via their trustees annual report each year. This becomes effective for reporting periods on or after 1 April 2008.

The two example reports cover one charity below the £500,000 audit threshold and one above it and are the first of a planned online bank of examples which will be added to as supplementary public benefit guidance for specific types of charities is published towards the end of this year.

The reports are available from the Commission's website at www.charitycommission.gov.uk under ‘Public benefit reporting'.

Who's Who: Ian Allsop

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.