As a result of a recent Charity Commission legal action, the former trustee of a Welsh charity was ordered to pay over £117,000 to Wrexham charities which support cancer patients.
On first glance I accept that this shouldn’t be a contentious point, but bear with me.
As a result of a recent Charity Commission legal action, the former trustee of a Welsh charity was ordered to pay over £117,000 to Wrexham charities which support cancer patients. The ex-trustee had previously been in charge of a charity which operated a shop in a Wrexham hospital. The charity was meant to apply the profits from the shop towards equipment and resources for cancer patients in the surrounding area, but instead spent more than £400,000 on a plan to erect a giant Welsh dragon on the Wales/England border. The idea was to encourage tourism to the area.
Now, an increase in tourism (and all the benefits it could bring to the local residents) is not necessarily problematic, and in certain circumstances could even be considered a charitable activity. The issue in this instance was that the charity’s charitable object - its goal - didn’t relate to increasing tourism, but relating to providing equipment and resources to cancer patients in the Wrexham area.
Charities must have clear charitable objects, and all their efforts (and money) should be aimed at achieving that purpose. Using a charity’s money on something that is not in line with its charitable objects can be a breach of charity law. Just because an activity might appear to be for the benefit of the public, for the benefit of the charity’s own beneficiaries or even charitable in its own right doesn’t mean that those running the charity can spend their money on that activity. They must have a rational belief that the expenditure directly helps achieve the charity’s objects.
Schools and academy trusts are charities, and therefore have particular charitable objects that they must expend their money and efforts on. The specific objects can vary between educational institutions, but usually focus on the advancement of education (or in the case of Catholic schools and academy trusts, the advancement of the Catholic faith).
With the ongoing cost of living crisis, humanitarian crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan and environmental disasters across several continents, it can be tempting for governors and trustees to consider using school revenue to make donations (either of cash or in kind) to worthwhile charities. However, before making any donations out of school revenue, decisionmakers should consider whether the donation directly helps the school or academy trust achieve its stated charitable objects. The decision and rationale must then be clearly recorded in the minutes for use as evidence later. Schools should also consult the financial framework provided by their local education authority; academy trusts should consider their funding agreement and Academies Financial Handbook for additional factors to consider.
There are alternative mechanisms for schools and academy trusts to be able to donate to non-educational charities, including using school fund donations, asking PTFAs and “Friends Of” charities which support the school to fundraise by themselves, or even providing non-financial support to staff or students to undertake their own fundraising activities. If in doubt, legal advice should be sought before making any donation.
It goes without saying that the purchase of a dragon is unlikely to directly assist in advancing the education of students. I am willing to hear arguments on unicorns, however.
Regardless of the outcome of ballots on industrial action, unless there is drastic change to funding for schools in relation to pay increases, it will be unusual to find any organisational budget that is not impacted by the current economic situation.
There’s been little evidence of interventions or financial management reviews this year and it appears the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has re-focussed on financial delivery. It’s also telling that there were no discernible changes to the reporting of financial irregularities in the Academies Trust Handbook 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel De Souza, has recently published a report “Beyond the labels: a SEND system which works for every child, every time”, which she intends to sit alongside the DfE’s SEND Review (2019) and SEND Green Paper (2022) and which she hopes will put children’s voices at the heart of the government’s review of SEND system.
As well as providing day-to-day support to help you focus on managing your settings, we also provide training and professional development on a range of topics to keep you and your staff up-to-date.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHCR) recently issued new, non-statutory guidance regarding the wearing of natural or protective hairstyles, specifically in reference to their representation in uniform, behaviour or standalone appearance policies.
Emma Hughes, head of HR services at Browne Jacobson, explains how CST’s updated executive pay report and the linked benchmarking service from XpertHR can help trust boards make robust decisions on pay.
There’s greater opportunity than ever for parents, carers and guardians to voice any concerns they have relating to their child’s education and for their concerns to be heard and to be taken seriously. While most staff in schools and academies are conscious of their legal duties relating to complaints management, many are struggling to cope with such a significant increase in the volume of complaints they must manage.
This guidance has been prepared to support academy trusts (Trusts) who want to hold a fully virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) or a hybrid AGM, as we know that Trusts may want to be prepared for future disruption as well as having a general interest in holding more meetings virtually. The guidance also applies to other meetings of the Members (known as General Meetings).
We’re pleased to collaborate with Lloyds Bank, who recently asked us and audit and risk specialists Crowe UK to offer guidance that academy trusts would find helpful when considering setting up a trading subsidiary.
The DfE has published new guidance and opened the application process for window two of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) for 2022/2023, with a fund of £86m in trust capacity funding focused particularly on education investment areas.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established in March 2015. We now have its report. As you would expect with such a broad scope, the report is long and makes a number of far-reaching recommendations. In this article, Dai Durbridge highlights seven of the 20 recommendations, sets out how they could impact on schools and suggests what steps to take now.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has been named as winner of the ‘Legal Advisors to Education Institutions’ category at the Education Investor Awards 2022 for a record sixth time.
Since the new Suspensions and Exclusions Statutory Guidance was published, we have received a lot of questions about the use of managed moves. For the first time, the Statutory Guidance does explain what a managed move is, but in relatively broad terms and does not cover the mechanics of how a managed move should operate.
Over 3000 young people from across the UK and Ireland took part in a virtual legal careers insight event, aimed at making the legal profession more diverse.
Holly Quirk, an associate barrister in Browne Jacobson’s Manchester office, was awarded the Legal Professional of the Year Award at this year’s Manchester Young Talent Awards.
The risk of assault against staff is, sadly, something that all schools need to consider carefully. Here one legal expert explains what they can do to protect staff and ensure they fulfil their duty of care.
An engineering company in Tyne and Wear was fined £20,000 after a worker fractured his pelvis and suffered internal injuries after falling through a petrol station forecourt canopy, whilst he was replacing the guttering.
