Public Benefit Assessments – The Government’s Perspective

ThirdSector reports that the Charity Commission of England and Wales has givencharities a five year deadline to improve performance under the Commission’spublic benefit assessment structure.  TheCharityCommission’s website states that “the Charities Act 2006 requires allcharities to have aims which are, demonstrably, for the public benefit” andprovides two core principles and a host of sub-principles that must be met inorder for a charity to pass a public benefit assessment.  The overarching principles require“identifiable benefit or benefits” provided to “the public or a section of thepublic.”  The Commission provides greaterdetail of what is required in its generalguidance publication.

In recent months, the Charity Commission, has called for ademonstrable commitment from certain fee-charging schools.  Two of the five schools assessed earlier thisyear by the Commission were found to not be providing sufficient public benefitand were given three months to respond. The schools were then given an additional nine months to create plans toaddress the assessment results.

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