Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector.
To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic.
- Charity Commission
- Stephen Lloyd Awards – Open for entries
- Investigations and complaints
- Sector general
- Social media
- Equity, equality, diversity and inclusion
- Fundraising
- Volunteering
- AI
- Whistleblowing
- Public procurement and subsidy control
- Health and social care
- International development
- Animal welfare
- Education
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission has shared a new interactive tool for ‘Building Financial Resilience’. This asks a series of questions to help charities reflect on their financial management, with links to the relevant guidance for each topic.
See ‘Investigations and complaints’ below.
Stephen Lloyd Awards – Open for entries
Fuelling innovative change, the Stephen Lloyd Awards are on the lookout for bold changemakers with creative solutions to everyday societal or environmental challenges. If you, or someone you know, has an early-stage project tackling a current issue in a new and impactful way, this is the perfect opportunity to bring it to life. Finalists receive £2,500 and winners are awarded £25,000 to accelerate their idea, alongside practical support. Open to charities, social enterprises, and social entrepreneurs, apply today or encourage someone in your network to take this opportunity. Entries close at midnight on 14 May. Please visit www.stephenlloydawards.org or get in touch with Mona Rahman at [email protected]. The Stephen Lloyd Awards are an initiative of the Bates Wells Foundation, charity reg. number 1150321.
Investigations and complaints
The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into Plymouth Islamic Education Trust. The charity was previously placed in the ‘double defaulter’ inquiry for failures to file annual reporting documents, and the Commission has found “the trustees have consistently demonstrated that they are either unwilling or unable to comply with their legal duties”.
Sector general
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has shared its ‘Road Ahead 2025’ report. The report (delivered in partnership with Zurich) looks at the landscape in the UK for voluntary sector organisations, finding the sector “continues to demonstrate resilience, creativity, and determination in the face of unprecedented challenges”.
Social media
Bates Wells Partner Suhan Rajkumar and Senior Associate Hannah Wright are hosting a webinar on 6 May to help charities navigate their use of social media amidst the blurring of professional and personal lives.
Equity, equality, diversity and inclusion
As you’ve probably seen in the press, last week the UK Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision, in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, that the terms ”man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological man, a biological woman and biological sex, and therefore that the legal definitions of “man” and “woman” do not include transgender men and transgender women. A briefing from Bates Wells Partners Robert Oakley and Paul Jennings, Senior Associate and Knowledge Lawyer Thérèse Rankin, and Solicitor Stanley Carrodus takes a closer look at the findings and explores in more detail what this landmark judgment means for organisations. As noted in the briefing, the Court also made “clear that those whose gender identity is different from the sex they were born with (i.e., those who are transgender) are protected from discrimination” (also under the Equality Act).
Fundraising
The Fundraising Regulator (FR) has published an update and new guidance for charitable institutions using and marketing child sponsorship as a means of fundraising. The guidance aims to increase transparency about how donors’ money is being used. It considers three types of child sponsorship: direct sponsorship (where there is an exclusive link to an individual child), community sponsorship (where a child benefits from a wider pool of money), and hybrid sponsorship (where donations are split between a sponsored child and a wider community benefit). It includes guiding principles such as:
- Make it clear at the outset who will benefit from the donor’s gift.
- Provide clear, prominent, and accessible information, e.g. through a FAQs page.
- Explain what would happen if the child who is being sponsored were to reach a particular age, leave the project, or die, or if the charity withdraws its support.
The FR has introduced a new digital Fundraising Badge, which will allow users to verify their registration status.
The FR has also shared a new video which explains its role as the independent regulator of charitable fundraising in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Directory of Social Change has published an article with thoughts on “Five things fundraisers should be thinking about right now”.
Volunteering
The Welsh Government and various stakeholders have opened a consultation (running until 30 May 2025) about a new proposed approach to volunteering in Wales.
AI
The Institute for Public Policy Research has shared a research paper considering AI innovation in the UK. This considered 3,256 UK AI firms to analyse how AI is being used and where there are deployment gaps, focusing on AI use in health and transportation. It calls for a clearer focus on the direction of AI development.
Whistleblowing
As summarised in this case study, Bates Wells Partner Paul Seath and Associate Jasmine Sudworth recently led a team in acting for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and assisting them to successfully defend a whistleblowing claim brought by their former Chair of Council. The case study includes commentary on whistleblowing protections and worker status. In this case, the Employment Tribunal found that the claimant failed to prove “worker” status (which is required in order to qualify for whistleblowing protection) because there was nothing sufficiently resembling a contractual relationship between the claimant and the RCN in relation to his elected position as Chair of Council, and that it was a relevant factor (although not in itself determinative) that the position of Chair was unpaid.
Public procurement and subsidy control
The Government Commercial Function has published guidance, ‘UK1: the new Pipeline Notice: A guide for buyers and suppliers’, which provides information for buyers and suppliers on pipeline notices introduced under the Procurement Act 2023. Pipeline notices are notices that set out specific information about any public contract with an estimated value of more than £2 million (inclusive of VAT and options).
The Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU) has published a call for inputs into its first review, seeking views on the effectiveness of the operation of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and its impact on competition and investment within the UK. The call for evidence runs until 24 June 2025 and the SAU plans to publish its first monitoring report as soon as is practicable after the reporting period ends on 31 March 2026.
Health and social care
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, has commissioned an independent review of children’s hearing services and has appointed Dr Camilla Kingdon as its independent chair.
The Department of Health and Social Care has shared details about NHS England’s funding arrangements and objectives when commissioning public health services.
The Mental Health Foundation has published a report on the mental health of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK.
See ‘AI’ above.
International development
The UK has announced a new £120 million in humanitarian funding for Sudan. The funding is for the 2025 to 2026 financial year and will deliver food and nutrition supplies and provide emergency support to survivors of sexual violence.
And Bond has issued a statement on the second anniversary of the start of the conflict in Sudan.
An open letter signed by 107 leaders of refugee charities and NGOs in the UK has been sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. This asks for the government to stop using “expensive and unsuitable” hotels to house asylum seekers (instead seeking more cost-effective and appropriate community housing), and to fund support for asylum seekers from the Home Office’s own budget instead of from the UK’s aid budget.
Bond has shared an article calling for the UK government to engage with global financial architecture reform proposals (for example, to tackle the global debt crisis) and to take an active role at the upcoming Fourth International Financing for Sustainable Development Conference.
See ‘Animal welfare’ below.
Animal welfare
Bond has shared an article commenting on how animal welfare impacts human well-being and climate change, and calling for animal welfare to be incorporated in global policy.
Education
The Department for Education has shared an announcement about 750 schools opening free breakfast clubs, which they estimate could save parents up to 95 additional hours and £450 per year.
Bates Wells Partner Laura Soley and Senior Counsel Alice Faure Walker have published an article in the Independent School Management Magazine, which sets out tips for independent schools on unlocking charitable restricted and endowment funds for broader use.
The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has ruled that the former Chair of the proprietor body of Rabia Girls’ and Boys’ School in Luton has been barred from taking part in the management of independent and maintained schools. In its prohibition direction, the Department for Education said the former Chair “failed to follow a direction given by the Secretary of State and failed in his role to ensure that an independent school was managed in compliance with the Independent School Standards”. Schools Week has reported that the decision comes after the school, which closed in 2021, repeatedly failed to meet a range of Ofsted standards between 2014 and 2017.
Disclaimer – The information contained in this update is not intended to be a comprehensive update – it is our selection of the website announcements made in the week up to last Friday which we think will be of interest to charities and social enterprises. The views expressed in items we’ve included are the views of the named authors/sources, and should not be taken to be the views of Bates Wells, its partners or employees. The content in this update is necessarily of a general nature – specific advice should always be sought for specific situations.