Clarity on Charity description and trustee consultancy payments criteria
Dear Charity Commission for England and Wales,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I request clarification of the following points:
1. What is the difference between a fitness centre and a gym for charity purposes? Both technically operate for the benefit of mankind in terms of improving health..........and yet charities receive additional tax reliefs.
2. Can a fitness centre, which has all the equipment of a gym: bikes, treadmills, etc, and operates on a membership requiring a monthly fee and private coded access still be a charity? And if so how? A number of registered fitness charities are allegedly 'open to the entire community' for charity purposes but they are security controlled, require membership and monthly payment to access.
3. Can fitness membership payments be considered suitable for claiming gift aid thereon?
4. Can a trustee or their board approve a trustee's consultancy fee of £25000 annually? If yes. what conditions would need to be met? (Please do not refer to or re-quote generic details on your 'gov' website.)
5. Would this consultancy payment require Charity Commission approval and where would it be published?
Yours faithfully,
M Martin
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Dear Mr Martin
Request for information
Thank you for your email dated 14 May 2019 about the above named subject.
We are sorry for the delay in responding to your request.
We are unable to provide the information requested at present. This is
because of the following reasons:
* it does not relate to our regulatory role,
* the request is too general and
* it does not mention any specific charity.
To be charitable, a charity must be set up with exclusively charitable
purposes that must also meet the public benefit requirements.
The following guidance explains these requirements further:
· [1]What makes a charity (CC4) (See section “Part 5: The High
Court’s charity law jurisdiction” in particular);
· [2]Public benefit: the public benefit requirement (See section
“Part 5: Benefiting the public or a sufficient section of the public” in
particular);
· [3]How to set up a charity (CC21a);
· [4]How to register your charity (CC21b) (Legal requirement - By
law, if you set up a charity you must apply to register it with the
Charity Commission if it is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO)
or its annual income is more than £5,000, unless it is a specific type of
charity that doesn’t have to register);
· [5]Charity types: how to choose a structure (CC22a)
· [6]How to write your governing document (CC22b)
· [7]The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need
to do (See sections “3. Who can be a trustee and how trustees are
appointed”; “5. Comply with your charity’s governing document and the
law”; “5.1 Your charity’s governing document”; “6.2 Making decisions”; “7.
Manage your charity’s resources responsibly”; “7.3 Getting the funds your
charity needs (income generation)”; “8.3 What to do if something does go
wrong” and “8.4 When the commission would become involved” in particular).
I trust that this response is helpful to you.
Yours sincerely
Michael Delaney
Charity Services
W: [8]https://www.gov.uk/charity-commission
[9]Twitter Follow us on Twitter | @ChtyCommission
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Dear Charity Commission for England and Wales,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Charity Commission for England and Wales's handling of my FOI request 'Clarity on Charity description and trustee consultancy payments criteria'.
You have clearly been dissatisfied with my request as you considered it too general. I will therefore amend my questions albeit that I do have a specific charity in mind where the trustee is annually paying himself a £25000 consultancy fee.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I request the following points:
1. How many fitness centre or gyms are registered as charities for charity purposes?
2. Please list these charities with their names and addresses together with details of whether they claim gift aid.
3. According to your earlier response you stated the requirement for a charity status is that it is ‘exclusively charitable’. How many of these charities charge a membership? Does that still mean they are charitable?
4. How many of these charities pay their trustees a consultancy fee? Please list them.
5. Would this consultancy payment require Charity Commission approval and where would it be published? If yes please list these charities.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
M Martin
Thank you for submitting your Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the
Charity Commission. We will respond within 20 working days.
If you have used this email address for a query that is not an FOI
request, we will not reply.
Please contact [1]Charity Commission to resubmit general enquiries.
This is an automated email. Please do not reply to this email.
________________________________
On track to meet your filing deadline? Charities have ten months from
their financial year end to file their Annual Return and Accounts. Find
out more at [2]www.charitycommission.gov.uk. Remember to file on time and
use our online services.
Want to know more about how we handle your data? See the Charity
Commission’s Personal information charter
[3]https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
need to.
______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
______________________________________________________________________
References
Visible links
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2. http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/
3. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisati...
Dear Mr Martin
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. My response is
attached.
Yours sincerely
Hailley Taylor
W: [1]https://www.gov.uk/charity-commission
[2]Twitter Follow us on Twitter | @ChtyCommission
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