Minister for civil society Nick Hurd has announced that academies, foundation and voluntary schools and sixth-form colleges will have their exempt status reconferred, subject to parliamentary approval.
Sixth-form colleges which had their exempt charitable status removed by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 will have the status reinstated. Foundation and voluntary schools, which were due, as of 31 August, to lose the provisional measures ensuring their treatment as exempt charities since their the official exempt status was revoked in 2009, will now regain exempt status.
The action will affect 94 sixth-form colleges and 8,100 foundation and voluntary schools in England and 175 foundation and voluntary schools in Wales.
The move means that these schools and colleges will not be required to register or report to the Charity Commission. Instead the Secretary of State for Education will be appointed as principal regulator of academies and foundation and voluntary schools in England, while the Welsh Assembly Government will regulate foundation and voluntary schools in Wales. The Young People's Learning Agency will be principal regulator of sixth-form colleges, although following the public bodies review the organisation will be succeeded next year by an education funding agency which will continue the regulatory role.
A momoranda of understanding between the principal regulators and the Charity Commission will outline the roles of the principal contractors, how they will work with the Commission and under what circumstances they must refer issues to the Commission.
The action is subject to parliamentary approval which will be sought "in due course", said Hurd.
He added: "In my capacity as minister for civil society, I have day-to-day responsibility for the legal framework for charities in England and Wales. I believe that the measures I set out here will continue to ensure the appropriate and effective regulation of charities and therefore help maintain public trust and confidence in the charitable sector."
