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ISC asks Charity Commission to endorse schools’ right to charity status1

Governance | Tania Mason | 17 Sep 2012

The Independent Schools Council has asked the Charity Commission to make a public declaration endorsing public schools as proper charities.

The request was made in a letter from ISC chairman Barnaby Lenon (pictured) to the Commission’s interim chair John Wood, which accompanied the umbrella body’s official response to the regulator’s new draft public benefit guidance.

In the letter, Lenon highlights the view amongst some sections of society that independent schools should not be entitled to charitable status, and asks the Commission for help to address this.

He wrote: “Independent schools represent a substantial, established part of the charitable sector.

“But we are concerned that it has become commonplace to dismiss independent schools as poor relations to ‘proper’ charities.

“For the hundreds of thousands of pupils our schools educate, and the tens of thousands of teachers and other staff our schools employ, a narrative which regards charitable independent schools as somewhere between historical anachronisms and tax avoidance shelters is deeply corrosive.”

He went on to ask the Commission, “in the context of your primary statutory objective of increasing public trust and confidence in charities”, what it can do to support the public schools sector.

“This is not to ask you to take a political or ideological stance on independent education – you do not, for example, need to take a theological position on charities which advance religion – but, rather, to endorse publicly the right of independent schools to take their place on the Commission’s register of charities.”

Scottish Labour MP says schools should not be charities

The ISC’s letter comes just as a Labour education spokesman in Scotland has called for public schools to be stripped of their charitable status.

Scottish Labour’s shadow learning minister Neil Findlay said such schools are “taking advantage” to gain “significant financial benefits” over the state sector.

And as recently as July, UK shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said that a significant number of private schools are “failing to fulfil their charitable objectives” and that a Labour government would consider primary legislation to address this problem.

ISC's response to guidance

The ISC’s Lenon also used the letter to point out that the Commission has ignored previous offers from the ISC to work together to reach a consensus on what ‘public benefit’ really means, and notes “with disappointment, although perhaps not real surprise”, that the ISC was not invited to assist in drawing up the new public benefit guidance.

The ISC’s submission on the new draft guidance takes issue with a number of points.  It says the document should be much clearer about which sections trustees must have regard to under the law, and which parts are merely the Commission’s advice on good practice.

It states that the Commission’s attempts to define certain key concepts, such as “the poor” are not well-executed. And it criticises the fact that the guidance makes no attempt to describe what the Commission means by “luxury” or “gold-plated” services.

The ISC also echoes comments from several other respondents that the hyperlinked online format of the guidance makes it very hard to follow, and recommends that it be made available in a single downloadable document.

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