Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations

Charity Commission

Draft Public Benefit Guidance

All charities must have charitable purposes which are for the public benefit. (A ‘purpose’ is the overall goal or aim of the charity which is usually set out in its governing document.) This is known as the ‘public benefit requirement’.

The Charities Act 2006 does not define what is meant by ‘public benefit’; that remains governed by the existing law, which is based on decisions which have been made by the courts and the Charity Commission over the years. But the Act does remove the presumption that currently exists in charity law that organisations relieving poverty or advancing education or religion benefit the public. This means that, in future, all charities will have to demonstrate that their purposes benefit the public. The DPBG sets out what are the principles of public benefit and the Charity Commission’s approach to assessing the public benefit of charities.

The purpose of this draft public benefit guidance is to:

• Explain the requirement that, to be a charity, an organisation must have charitable purposes which benefit the public;
• Raise awareness and understanding of the public benefit requirement amongst the public and the charitable sector; and
• Explain how the public benefit requirement operates in practice, including the principles we will apply when assessing the public benefit of individual charities and the further work which we will do to develop our approach to assessing public benefit.

The Charity Commission particularly seeks the voluntary and community’s sector’s views on;

• The ways in which we will promote awareness and understanding of the public benefit requirement
• the ways in which we will assess whether charities meet the public benefit requirement; and
• the ways in which charities might report on the public benefit they provide.

The Charity Commission are currently analysing the responses received which will inform the ‘Public benefit guidance’ which they expect to publish by October 2007

Related Links

• Charity Commission Website (opens in a new window)
• Consultation document (opens in a new window)
• CEMVO's response for the Charity Commission to this consultation (PDF document)