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Registering as a charity

There have been some major changes in Charity Law in the past couple of years - so it's important to understand whether your group could be a charitable organisation (perhaps even without you realising that!); and whether you need to register as a charity.

What's a charitable organisation?  

In broad terms, your group will be a charitable organisation if it has a constitution which:

• sets out charitable purposes which are used for public benefit
• ensures that trustees (eg the management committee) are responsible for running the charity, and that they are unpaid
• ensures that all income and assets are used for charitable purposes.

Your group might not have a long and formal constitution - perhaps just what amounts to a set of rules. But - whatever the form your constitution takes - can you answer "yes" to each of the points above? If you can, then your group is a charitable organisation.

Charitable purposes - and public benefit

Charity is no longer just to do with the relief of poverty, or the advancement or religion or education - though these of course remain charitable activities.

What is meant by "charitable purposes" is now very wide indeed - it includes amateur sports groups, drama groups, most community groups working with children or with older people, animal welfare groups. Whilst the recent Charities Acts in England & Wales, and in Scotland, do set out a list of charitable purposes, the list is not exclusive - other activities which are of public benefit may also be charitable.

"Public benefit" is crucial to whether or not activities are charitable purposes. In the past, Charity Law worked on the assumption that an organisation whose activities were charitable purposes would be carrying out those activities for public benefit. The new Charities Acts (England & Wales, and Scotland) require organisations to demonstrate that their activities are of public benefit as part of the application process for registering as a charity

For most community groups, this will be easy to demonstrate. And most community groups are indeed charitable organisations.

Requirement to register as a charity 

In England and Wales, you must register as a charity as soon as your organisation has an income of over £5000 a year

In Scotland, you must be registered as a charity (whatever your income) before you can call your organisation a charity

In Northern Ireland, registration of charities is being introduced soon - but charities can meanwhile have their charitable status recognised by the Inland Revenue.

How to go about registering as a charity

For England & Wales, and Scotland, the registration process is broadly similar -  your constitution is examined to check that your organisation is charitable, and you're also asked for details of trustees and other information.

In England & Wales, you apply to the Charity Commission; and in Scotland to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)

It can seem a complicated procedure - but both the Charity Commission and OSCR  have a lot of guidance available; and their websites are a good place to start.

For the Charity Commission website click here

For the OSCR website click here

For Northern Ireland, you can find out about the new Charity Commission and Register of Charities from the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA). For their website, click here