Change of Charitable Status

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Dear Mr McKee

I write in response to your email of 3 May 2018 in which you make a
request for information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (FOIA)  Please accept my sincere apologies for the lateness of
our response to your request.

You have asked the Commission the following:

In an article in the Daily Telegraph on 27/4/18 Camilla Turner, the
Education Editor, said that during the past year, nine schools had
“dropped their charitable status according to the Independent Schools
Council”.

1. Please can you name the schools or at least those of which you are
aware, and identify the main steps they had to take to achieve it?

2.    Can you advise (a) how, under UK charity law, existing charitable
schools can, by choice, abandon their charitable status once
established?,  and (b) if they can, how they can then use their land,
buildings and other assets in the future for fee earning non-charitable
purposes?

3. Can you also advise if the law is the same in Northern Ireland and/or
Scotland?

I can confirm we have dealt with question 1 under the FOIA.  We will deal
with questions 2 and 3 outside of FOIA as we do not consider them to be
requests for information we hold but more routine requests for general
advice.  I will use the same numbering format for our response to your
questions for your ease of reference.

1.     I can confirm that the Charity Commission does not hold the
information requested.

It may be helpful if I explain that there is no identifier specific to
independent schools in our systems that we can use to filter out that
category of school in a search of charities on the register to identify
those specific charities the article referred to.

Outside of the framework of the FOIA I can advise you regarding points 2
and 3 as follows.

2.     The description of existing charitable schools choosing to “abandon
their charitable status” is not clear enough for us to comment on
directly. It is not possible for a charity to cease to be a charity by
choice, but there are ways in which a charity can restructure, or transfer
assets to another body which is not a charity, which could be described as
a school “ceasing to be charitable”. How this would operate and the effect
on the assets of the charity will depend on the original structure of the
charity, the nature of the new structure or other body and how any assets
held on charitable trusts are dealt with during the restructure or
transfer.  The Commission would not wish to comment on what may have
happened in any individual case without information as to the specific
facts of that case.

The Commission is required by law to remove from the Register any
institution which no longer appears to us to be charitable or which has
ceased to exist or does not operate.

If an institution is removed from the Register on the basis that it is no
longer a charity – for example, due to a change in the law – then, subject
to the circumstances of the case, we would consider whether
(notwithstanding that the institution is no longer a charity) charitable
trusts continue to apply to property connected with the institution and if
so what steps should be taken in relation to those trusts

Any assets including land and buildings held on a charitable trusts must
be used for the relevant charitable purposes.

If property has been validly transferred by a charity to a non-charity,
then the non-charity can use that property for its (non-charitable)
purposes. If a charity were to transfer its property in this way then its
trustees would need to ensure that they complied with their legal duties
as trustees in approving the transfer, including ensuring that they act in
the best interests of the charity.”

3.    I’m afraid we are unable to advise you about the laws governing
Northern Ireland and/or Scotland.  You will need to enquire directly with
the Charity Commission for NI and OSCR, the regulator for charities in
Scotland.  You will find their contact details on their respective
websites [1]https://www.charitycommissionni.org.uk/ and
[2]https://www.oscr.org.uk/

If you think our decision is wrong, you can ask for it to be reviewed.  
Such requests should be submitted within three months of the date of our
response and should be addressed to the Charity Commission at PO Box 211,
Bootle, L20 7YX  (email: [3][email address]). More
information about our Freedom of Information Act review service can be
found on the following link on our website:  
[4]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati....

If, after this, you remain unhappy with the decision, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision.  Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted our review
procedure.  The ICO  can be contacted at the Information Commissioner’s
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF (email:
[5][email address].)

Yours sincerely

Katherine O’Hare

Information Manager

Charity Commission

W: [6]https://www.gov.uk/charity-commission

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