The government expects changes outlined in the Charities Bill to save the sector £28m over ten years.
A factsheet to accompany the bill was published earlier this week, which reveals that the estimated savings to the sector are £2.8m a year.
The bill implements most recommendations from the Law Commission’s 2017 Technical Issues in Charity Law Report and aims to make charity regulation more effective, with a legal framework that is easier to navigate.
The main elements of the bill include changing the law to help charities amend their governing documents more easily and increasing flexibility for charities to use their permanent endowment. It should also produce “a clearer and less administratively burdensome” legal framework for buying, selling, leasing and mortgaging charity land.
There are approximately 169,000 charities in England and Wales registered with the Charity Commission with a combined annual income of more than £83bn.
Therefore an annual saving of £2.8m represents a small fraction of the sector's resources.
It is also unlikely to offset the losses felt by the sector as a result of the pandemic. Previous estimates for the latter half of 2020, from Pro Bono Economics, found that the charity sector faced a £10.1bn funding shortfall.
Many charities are also anticipating massive drops in income as a result of Covid-19. Macmillan Cancer Support, for example, is predicting it will lose £175m in three years.
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