Will your school pass the public benefit test?

As you may already be aware, the Charity Commission has now published its first set of public benefit reports. The Commission has found that two of the five independent schools surveyed were not operating for the public benefit (which is now a statutory component of charitable status).

 

Essentially, the Commission took the view that that the schools in question were not doing enough to mitigate the effect which their high fees had on their accessibility.  The decisions seem to be based on findings of insufficient free or subsidised places for pupils, although the schools claimed to be benefitting the public in other ways, via outreach schemes and offering shared use of facilities.    

 

The Commission's emphasis is clearly on providing means-tested bursaries; both of the schools that "failed" the test were involved in a number of worthy projects within their local community but the Commission felt that they did not do enough.

 

Ultimately these decisions may be challenged, as they do not seem entirely consistent with the law in this area. In the meantime, independent schools with charitable status ought to scrutinise their own charitable objects and ensure that they can make persuasive arguments to the Commission about their public benefit.

 

If you have any queries about this, or indeed any other area of law, we at Berwins would be pleased to assist. We act for a number of independent schools (in North Yorkshire in particular) across a range of legal disciplines and as such are very familiar with the sorts of issues you face.