Public benefit of independent schools escalates to Charity Tribunal

Governance | Vibeka Mair | 30 Sep 2010

The Charity Tribunal has been asked to consider how the public benefit test should apply to fee-charging schools.

This week, the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, has asked the Charity Tribunal to review the way the Charity Commission is interpreting public benefit for independent schools.

The Tribunal will be asked to rule on what independent fee-paying schools may need to offer for the public or local community to continue their status as charities (for tax purposes).

A spokesman for Grieve said: “It is the intention of the Attorney General that the law that underpins the guidance is clarified.”

Also, the ISC is due to hear next month whether it can proceed with its own judicial review. The ICS wants the courts to look at the legal and practical interpretations of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance for public schools.

David Lyscom, chief executive of the ISC, who warmly welcomed the Charity Tribunal review, said: “We have been saying all along that there are serious misgivings among charity lawyers, as well as charities themselves, about the Commission’s approach.

“The entire sector continues to be at the whim of the Commission’s prevailing and subjective view as to what public benefit means, and what is ‘sufficient’ for a school to pass the public benefit test. The verdicts of the Commission in the cases of the five independent schools they reviewed, and the two where action plans were required, have done little to clarify the position or reduce the uncertainties."

The Charity Commission said it accepted that the way it carried out its statutory duties would be subject to legal challenge, however a Commission spokeswoman added:

"In preparing all our guidance on public benefit, the Commission was at all times diligent in consulting charities and others affected, and in making clear the process we had followed. We set out our legal reasoning clearly and carefully alongside our guidance. We stand by our approach and the legal analysis which underpins it, and we are confident that the Commission has acted reasonably and followed due process."

Directory: Charity Commission | The Charity Tribunal

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