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Tribunal ruling 'breaks link between bursaries and public benefit'

Governance | Tania Mason | 14 Oct 2011

The Independent Schools Council has voiced its “delight” at today’s ruling by the Upper Tribunal  on its judicial review of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance.

In a statement, it said: “Today’s ruling assists the many thousands of school governors who give their time and expertise freely and willingly to run some of the best schools in the world.”

The ruling “liberates schools to be creative in their charitable provision” and establishes three principles of enormous significance, it said:

“It puts governors firmly back in the driving seat on decisions relating to public benefit.

“It breaks the link, established in the guidance and doggedly pursued by the Commission in its assessments, between bursaries and public benefit. Bursaries remain important but not to the exclusion of other activities which reach out beyond the school gates.

“And it lays to rest any notion that the Commission can threaten independent schools with the loss of charitable status based on the Commission’s assessment of whether the school is doing enough to meet its public benefit requirement.”

The ISC goes on to say that the ruling “expressly recognises that schools are no different to many thousands of charities which provide high value services and have no option but to recover their costs through levying fees.”

Tribunal: ‘No one right answer for trustees’

The Tribunal, in its ruling, stated: “We recognise that the extent of the activities and facilities provided in any particular school will depend upon the school’s historic endowment as well as the fees currently charged.

"In our view, however, where facilities at what we might call the luxury end of education are in fact provided, it will be even more incumbent on the school to demonstrate a real level of public benefit.

"This is not to impose different standards on different schools; it is simply that where such luxury provision is made, a stringent examination of how it is provided and how the public benefit is satisfied is appropriate.

“This is all a matter of judgment for the trustees. There will be no one right answer. There will be one or more minimum benefits below which no reasonable trustees would go but subject to that, the level of provision and the method of its provision is properly a matter for them and not for the Charity Commission or the court.”

Click here to read the original story about today's Tribunal ruling.

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