Charities start talks on public benefit with Charity Commission

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 14 Oct 2009

St Anselm School, one of three charities that has failed the Charity Commission’s initial public benefit assessments, expects “a game of ping pong” with the Commission over the next nine months.

Today, Highfield Priory School, St Anselm’s School Trust and Penylan House Jewish Retirement and Nursing Home will be responding to the Charity Commission’s public benefit report from July which said the charities did not provide enough opportunity for those who couldn’t afford their fees and gave them 12 months to come up with an action plan.

Simon Northcott, head master at St Anselm's School, told Charity News Alert that he had told the Commission today that he looked forward to working with it over the next nine months to hammer out a plan. But he added that past conversations with the Commission on the matter hadn’t been fruitful.

“After the assessment findings I went to see the Commission in Taunton but I didn’t get a straight answer. I talked to Nick Mott, head of the public benefit review and Louise Drew, a senior public benefit officer who came and inspected us. I asked what did we have to do and they talked in riddles.

“I expect the process will be one of consultation with the Commission. It will be like a game of ping pong. We will propose something and they will say yes or no and go back and forth. It will be a guessing game for us which will take up a lot of our time.”

Northcott also said he was not surprised with Charity Commission chair Dame Suzi Leather’s announcement last week that charities could have up to five years to satisfy public benefit requirements: “It wasn’t news to us. We have been told we’d get a fair amount of time to come up with a plan.”

Penlyan House Jewish Retirement and Nursing Home said it had told the Commission its board was considering a response. Highfield Priory School was finalising its response as Charity News Alert went out.

Directory: Charity Commission
Who's Who: Vibeka Mair | Suzi Leather

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.