# Draft Charities Bill published

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/05/26/draft-charities-bill-published/
- Published: 2004-05-26T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The long-awaited draft Charities Bill has been published.
The draft contains “proposals
to boost public confidence in charities, help

 

new and existing charities to work effectively, ensure that donations are used

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properly and abuses are dealt with quickly and firmly”.

 

 

Measures included in the draft Bill are:

 

 

 * a modern definition of charity to reflect what is and what ought to be
    charitable.
 * measures to make it easier for charities to merge.
 * improved accountability for the Charity Commission, including a new tribunal 
   to deal with unresolved complaints.
 * the creation of a new legal entity, the Charitable Incorporated Organisation,
   for charities that wish to take a corporate form. This will avoid dual regulation
   between charity and company law and provide an alternative to the company limited
   by guarantee model currently used by many charities.
 * raising the threshold for compulsory registration
 * simplifying the rules of audit for larger charities
 * making it easier for charities to spend capital
 * a new, updated and unified local authority licensing scheme for all types of 
   public charitable collections
 * measures to support charity trustees. Trustees will be able to apply directly
   
   to the Charity Commission as well as to the courts for relief from personal liability
   for breach of trust. While not excusing fraud, it will protect trustees who have
   made honest mistakes, therefore encouraging more people to act as trustees. The
   draft Bill will also allow charities to pay trustees for specific services.
 * ‘back up’ powers to enable statutory legislation should self-regulation of fundraising
   be unsuccessful

 

 

It is available in four sections, all published as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.

 

 

The Charity Commission were quick to welcome its publication. The Chief Charity 
Commissioner, John Stoker, said: “The proposals in the draft Bill provide practical
benefits for virtually every charity, and contain a welcome definition of the Commission’s
future role and responsibilities. It’s a good balanced

 

package of changes which help to clarify what’s charitable while keeping the common
law flexibility which allows this diverse sector to develop. From our perspective,
this is a win-win result which will

 

keep the charity brand at the heart of our society”.

 

 

Indeed the Charity Commission has dedicated the whole of its May 2004 issue of [Charity Commission News](http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/tcc/ccnews20.asp)
to analysis of the draft Bill.

 

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