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Christine Rigby
Senior Consultant
The Government has announced a policy on interim enforcement of the National Minimum Wage in the social care sector: “sleep-in” shifts.
There is still time to sign up for BWB/NCVO Trustee Conference: ‘Good Governance in Action’ on 14th November.
At a glance
Helen Stephenson, the new CEO of the Commission, has announced that the Commission is working on proposals for a system under which larger charities will make a “modest contribution” to the cost of parts of their regulation.
The Association of Chairs has published guidance on “Making board committees work” and “Making investment committees work”.
The Institute of Fundraising has published its draft response to the Fundraising Regulator’s Consultation on the Code of Fundraising Practice on Data Protection.
The government has launched a consultation on significant amendments to its “Working together to safeguard children” guidance.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has launched a dedicated advice line to help small organisations preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation.
Charity Commission
Charging by the Charity Commission
In a new blog post, Helen Stephenson, the new CEO of the Commission, has announced that the Commission is working on proposals for a system under which larger charities will make a “modest contribution” to the cost of parts of their regulation. This may involve raising around £7million annually from the largest 2,000 charities on the register. The Commission hopes to consult on the proposals in 2018.
The blog post also announces that the Commission is making the case to Government for transition funding to help bridge the gap between its current funding and a significant increase in demand for its services in recent years. Helen Stephenson also says that she believes that the Commission must develop and improve its services to trustees.
Charity Fraud guidance
As part of Charity Fraud Awareness Week, which ran from 23-28 October, the Commission has updated its guidance on Protecting Your Charity from Fraud.
Governance
The Association of Chairs has published:
- “Making board committees work”
- “Making investment committees work”.
A copy of both can be downloaded for free from this webpage.
Tax and VAT
Charity Tax Group reports:
HMRC has clarified that the charity exemption to Making Tax Digital will only apply to corporation tax. There will be no exemption for charities in relation to VAT.
HMRC has made a minor change to Chapter 3.37 of the Gift Aid guidance to confirm that CASCs are not eligible to claim Gift Aid on membership subscriptions. The HMRC guidance for CASCs on tax relief has also been updated to reflect this. CTG says it understands from officials that this clarification has been made as the point was raised in a recent tribunal case and it was felt HMRC’s guidance could have been clearer on this point.
Fundraising
Code of Fundraising Practice
The Institute of Fundraising has published its draft response to the Fundraising Regulator’s Consultation on the Code of Fundraising Practice on Data Protection. Civil Society Media reports the draft accuses the Fundraising Regulator (FR) of a “fundamental shift of the goalposts” on direct mail.
Civil Society Media reports Stephen Dunmore of the FR has saying in the New Year the FR would be opening a fresh consultation looking to “reorganise and rationalise the Code of Fundraising Practice to make it more accessible to charities and the public”.
Fundraising Preference Service (FPS)
Civil Society Media reports the FPS has now received over 9,000 suppression requests.
Legacies
BWB recently hosted and chaired the Institute of Legacy Management’s roundtable discussion focusing on the Law Commission’s consultation on wills.
Brexit
VAT
In the following article in the BWB Autumn charity newsletter, Bill Lewis asks whether Brexit could be an opportunity to update the VAT rules in favour of charities and social enterprises.
Data Protection
The Government has responded to the report of the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee on Brexit: the EU data protection package. The government set out its requirements for a future UK-EU partnership, including maintaining a free flow of data, ongoing regulatory cooperation between the EU and the UK on current data protection issues, respect for UK sovereignty, and avoiding unnecessary additional costs on business. It is in the UK’s and the EU’s interests to reach an early agreement on mutual recognition of each other’s data protection frameworks as the basis for the continued free flow of personal data between the EU and the UK from exit until more permanent arrangements are in force.
Education
The Department for Education has published revised and updated statutory guidance on transport to education and training for 16 to 18-year-olds in England.
Justine Greening has announced new pilot programmes to employ teachers flexibly, and coaching schemes for women working in education.
See here for the text of a speech by the School Standards Minister at the Freedom and Autonomy for Schools National Association (FASNA) autumn conference.
Also see under Safeguarding below.
Safeguarding
The government has launched a consultation (‘the Consultation’) on significant amendments to its “Working together to safeguard children” guidance (‘the Guidance’), which sets out what is expected of organisations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. The changes are being made to reflect amendments to the safeguarding framework brought in by the Children and Social Work Act 2017 (‘the Act’). See here for a detailed Briefing from BWB’s Claire Whittle, Emma Dowden-Teale and Caraline Johnson.
Social care
The Government has announced a policy on interim enforcement of the National Minimum Wage in the social care sector: “sleep-in” shifts.
The Care Quality Commission has launched a consultation on proposed changes to regulatory fees for health and social care providers in England.
Also see under Housing below.
Social finance
See under Governance above.
Charity Tax Group reports the latest HMRC statistics on Social Investment Tax Relief indicate:
- In 2015-16, 25 social enterprises received investment through the Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR) scheme and £2.3 million of funds were raised.
- Since SITR was launched in 2014-15, up to 2015-16, 25 social enterprises have raised funds of £2.8 million through the scheme.
- Since 2014-15, 260 SITR advance assurance request (AAR) applications have been received. In 2016-17 there were 170 applications, of which 120 (69%) were approved.
Writing on Big Society Capital’s (BSC) blog, Joanna Heywood (Relationships Director at BSC) reports on the research carried out by BSC, in collaboration with the European Venture Philanthropy Association, to understand the state of the Venture Philanthropy sector in the UK. The project concluded that around 60 – 70 organisations were investing using two or more elements of the VP approach.
Responsible business
Designer furniture retailer Lombok has become the first business to be fined for breaching regulations introduced in 2013 to prohibit the importing and sale of illegally harvested timber.
Housing
The Department for Communities and Local Government and Department for Work and Pensions have published a policy statement setting out two new funding models for the supported housing sector (that is, where accommodation is provided alongside care, support or supervision in the community), to come into effect from April 2020. Two consultations on the new funding models were also published alongside the policy statement. The two new funding models proposed are:
- The introduction of a “Sheltered Rent”. This is a type of social rent (inclusive of service charges) for those in sheltered and extra care housing, which will keep funding for sheltered and extra care housing in the welfare system.
- The introduction of a locally administered ring-fenced grant fund for the provision of short-term and transitional supported housing. This fund will be administered by local authorities in England and 100% of housing costs (rent and eligible service charges) will be funded through the grant. This will remove short-term supported accommodation from the welfare system.
The grant funding amount will be set on the basis of current projections of future need (following discussions with local authorities). The consultations on the new funding models close on 23 January 2018 and responses should be emailed to [email protected]
International development
The government has stated it “secured important progress at the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) meetings in Paris” recently.
BOND has published “6 highlights from the DAC’s high-level meeting on aid rules”.
Working with refugees
A £1 million fund for organisations and communities wanting to support refugees coming to the UK has opened for bids.
Data protection
See under Brexit above.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched a dedicated advice line to help small organisations preparing for the new data protection law. To access the new service dial the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113 and select option 4 to be diverted to staff who can offer support. As well as advice on preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation, callers can also ask questions about current data protection rules and other legislation regulated by the ICO including electronic marketing and Freedom of Information.
A firm trading in people’s personal information and describing itself as ‘the UK’s Premier Lead Generation Provider’ has been fined £80,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
New Philanthropy Capital has published this article “GDPR It’s not just about fundraising”. One area the author has been looking at is how GDPR will affect data for research and evaluation.
Northern Ireland
Removal of charity trustees
As part of its inquiry into Growth for Adolescents and Providing Support, in order to investigate serious concerns about the control of finance and governance, CCNI has removed one of the charity trustees from office on the grounds of misconduct and mismanagement. It has also appointed Deloitte (NI) Limited as interim manager of the charity.
Scotland
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has announced that due to problems with its email distribution system between 20 and 25 October, some emails sent to Hotmail, Live, MSN and Outlook accounts may not have arrived. Charities that may have been affected can check their correspondence with OSCR by logging in to OSCR Online.
OSCR has also issued a reminder that files uploaded to OSCR Online cannot be more than 8mb in size.
This information is necessarily of a general nature and doesn’t constitute legal advice. This is not a substitute for formal legal advice, given in the context of full information under an engagement with Bates Wells.
All content on this page is correct as of November 8, 2017.