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

Risk management guidance

Civil Society has reported that the Charity Commission is planning to update its guidance on charities and risk management (CC26). Chief Executive David Holdsworth said the Commission is currently working on this with Caron Bradshaw, the Chief Executive of Charity Finance Group. Holdsworth also noted there is a general “backlog in reviewing our guidance” and the Commission has created a specific guidance team to address this. Holdsworth then shared insights into how the Commission intends to spend its increased budget next year, which will include a focus on technology and impact reporting,

Risks for non-profits from terrorist financing schemes

You may remember in January this year the Charity Commission led on a consultation about the risks non-profit organisations face from terrorist financing schemes. The Commission has now shared a very brief update about the consultation, saying simply that the responses to the consultation are going to be used to “help inform future engagement and ongoing outreach to not-for-profit organisations in the UK”. The Commission has given no detail of the responses it received.

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Investigations and complaints

An independent report by Professor Pamela Gillies (commissioned by the Scottish Funding Council) has been published which considers the financial collapse of Dundee University. Civil Society has reported that the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator has now launched an inquiry into the university’s governance.

Mohinderpal Sethi KC has published the results from his independent inquiry into antisemitism at Goldsmiths, University of London. The inquiry examined views from students and staff, as well as the university’s policies and procedures, to reach its findings and make recommendations. The inquiry found that Jewish students and staff have been subjected to antisemitism in the course of their studies and/or work and Goldsmiths has not done enough to make its Jewish students (or Jewish applicants seeking to become students) or staff feel welcome, included, and safe from antisemitism. The Guardian has reported that Goldsmiths intends to adopt the inquiry’s recommendations and has apologised to its Jewish staff and students.

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Tax and VAT

HMRC has published its annual summary of tax reliefs for charities and their donors, which identified around £6.7 billion in reliefs for the tax year running to April 2025 (£4.75 billion for charities and £1.92 billion for donors). This included £1.7 billion in Gift Aid being paid to over 67,000 charities. Business rates relief continued to be the largest single source of tax relief for charities, forecast at £2.75 billion.

See ‘Fundraising’ below.

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Equity, equality, diversity and inclusion

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has updated its interim update, which it issued after the For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers Supreme Court judgment. The EHRC has clarified that it does not consider it compulsory for employers to provide single sex toilets. Its interim statement now aligns with the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which require only “suitable and sufficient facilities”, including lockable mixed sex or unisex options where appropriate. If you’d like to speak with a member of our employment team about how this applies to your workplace, please get in touch with Paul Jennings and Thérèse Rankin.

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Safeguarding

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel has updated the non-statutory guidance for safeguarding partners. In addition to outlining the panel’s processes, the guidance sets out:

  • How chapter 5 of the ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023’ statutory guidance should be interpreted and implemented by safeguarding partners.
  • The duty on local authorities to notify the panel of serious child incidents and the notification process, including when and how notifications should be reported.
  • The approach to conducting rapid and local child safeguarding practice reviews, the key principles guiding decisions, and the qualities of good reviews.

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Funders and funding

NPC has shared a blog about how funders can rethink their approach in order to create long-term social change.

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Fundraising

Lotteries and prize draws

It has been confirmed in a written statement from Baroness Twycross that the government is not going to increase society lottery sales limits at this time. The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has published a report from WPI Economics about the current £50 million annual ticket sales limit for society lotteries and the impact of potentially increasing the limit to £100 million or removing the limit altogether. It found that, although 69% of all charities asked supported raising the limit, only the People’s Postcode Lottery (and lotteries operating under its brand) are close to approaching the £50 million limit. The report estimated that increasing the limit to £100 million would lead to a reduction in National Lottery ticket sales but result in a “net increase in returns to good causes of between £16 million and £132 million” overall (particularly taking into account increased sales and contributions to good causes from the People’s Postcode Lottery). Baroness Twycross’s statement says that the “Government wants a lotteries sector centred on one national lottery – The National Lottery – whilst continuing to support the hundreds of wider society lotteries that exists”. Civil Society has shared an article with responses from the sector to the decision, including the view from Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain (who previously proposed a removal of the sales limit) that this “feels like a missed opportunity to back our vital charity sector at a time when demand is rising and fundraising is increasingly difficult”.

Bates Wells Senior Associate Molly Carew-Jones commented that “while we would have welcomed greater flexibility for charities to grow their society lottery income, the current £50 million limit still provides a great opportunity for many charities to fundraise and engage with their supporters in different and creative ways.”

Baroness Twycross’ statement goes on to say that a Voluntary Code will be introduced for prize draw operators later this year to increase transparency, accountability, and player protections. Prize draws and competitions (i.e. products where there is a free and paid entry route and the outcome is determined by chance) currently do not require a licence under the Gambling Act 2005. The government plans to consider the success of the Voluntary Code to decide if it needs to take further action “including legislation”. DCMS has published a report by London Economics which considers online prize draws and competitions in detail, which found that around 10% of the proceeds from prize draws and competitions are donated to charity (compared to the required minimum donation of 20% for society lotteries).

Fundraisers in charity leadership

At a recent Bayes Business School event, Civil Society has reported that Harpreet Kondel (Chair of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising) called for more charities to involve fundraisers in senior leadership, given that fundraising is “central to an organisation’s success”.

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Climate change and environment

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has launched the IT Reuse for Good Charter. The Charter encourages organisations to reassess how they manage and dispose of IT assets, and to donate pre-loved tech to people who do not have access to a basic laptop, tablet, and smartphone. Sir Chris Bryant, Telecoms Minister, notes that the Charter is “helping more people access the digital tools they need to improve their lives while reducing harmful electronic waste”.

Data and privacy

The European Commission has announced in a news release that it has adopted an extension of its adequacy decisions with the UK until 27 December 2025. This is to allow the continued free flow of personal data from the EU to the UK while the European Commission assesses whether the new legal framework in the UK provided in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 continues to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.

AI

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has announced that the UK is the first country in the world to join the HealthAI Global Regulatory Network as a founding ‘pioneer’ country. The new global network of health regulators is focused on the safe, effective use of AI in healthcare. The MHRA will work with regulators across the world to “share early warnings on safety, monitor how AI tools perform in practice, and shape international standards together”.

And the Department of Health and Social Care has announced that an AI early warning system is going to be used to identify safety concerns across the NHS and stop failures before they escalate. Once it has been fully implemented, it could “analyse hospital databases to identify patterns of abuse, serious injuries, deaths, or other incidents that can slip through the net, cause harm and stop hospitals from running safely.”

See ‘Health and social care’ below.

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Culture and creative

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published new guidance (which took effect on 27 June) for trade mark owners. This follows the 2024 Supreme Court judgment in SkyKick UK Ltd and another v Sky Ltd and others, which considered bad faith in trade mark applications, especially where an applicant does not intend to trade under the brand across some or all of the listed goods or services. The SkyKick case is heavily technical in character (too much so to summarise in detail here) but has some important implications:

  • First, for how trade mark applications are filed: if the descriptions of their owners’ activities are not sufficiently tailored, then this could mean the trade marks are subject to objection from the IPO; and/or may be vulnerable to attack from third parties (e.g. by way of a defence to an allegation of infringement); and
  • Second, for those who use a brand in unusual ways, other than in a conventional trading fashion as a ‘badge of origin’. This could include businesses and charities that operate certification or accreditation schemes or offer badges of quality. It could also include membership organisations, whose members use a logo, a set of postnominals or something else to show their status.

Bates Wells’ in-house team of trade mark attorneys are busily analysing the new position, and would be able to answer any more detailed questions that arise. You can contact them at [email protected].

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Public procurement and subsidy control

The Cabinet Office has launched a ten week public consultation on plans for further reforms to public procurement. The proposed reforms are, among other things, designed to open up more opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary, community and social enterprises. The Minister’s Written Statement to Parliament gives more background. The consultation closes on 5 September. Bates Wells Partner Augustus Della-Porta commented: “There are some great proposals here which seek to enact some of the priorities set out in the National Procurement Policy Statement issued in February (see details in our update). Collectively these could help open up more opportunities for charities and social enterprises and any organisation with an interest in this space – as well as commenting on the proposals there is an opportunity to submit your own suggestions for changes to procurement processes and guidance to improve procurement. I’d particularly encourage organisations that supply or are looking to supply services caught by the procurement regime to participate in the consultation.”

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Company law

The Company Directors (Duties) Bill has been published, following its introduction as a Private Members’ Bill by Liberal Democrat MP Martin Wrigley and its first reading in the House of Commons last October. Bates Wells Partner Luke Fletcher commented, “Only last week, I was told by someone that ‘if I had a magic wand, the one thing I would change would be s172 of the Companies Act 2006 and the purpose of the company’. It has therefore been a privilege working with Martin Wrigley MP and the Better Business Act campaign on the drafting of this Bill, which seeks to do just that and to balance the interests of employees and the environment with those of shareholders. Particular credit to Mark Abbott, a Parliamentary Agent at Bates Wells, who has led on the drafting. We are hopeful that the principles set out in the Bill, and being introduced to Parliament, will ultimately be reflected in a revised and more balanced s172.”

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Scotland

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) has published the 10th edition of its Scottish third sector tracker. Of 326 third sector organisations surveyed, 89% were confident they will still be operating in 12 months, however 81% were experiencing financial issues. The key support needs they identified included finding funding, recruiting volunteers, and IT support.

An article by Civil Society has described the response of the SCVO to the Scottish government’s medium-term financial strategy, with SCVO’s Head of Policy and Research Kirsten Hogg describing it as “warm words and empty promises”. Hogg commented “there was no recognition of the voluntary sector’s essential contribution to public service delivery or the need to ensure voluntary sector staff benefit from multi-year grants and contracts, which should cover the full costs of employing staff.”

See ‘Investigations and complaints’ above.

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Northern Ireland

The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has reminded charities with an annual reporting deadline of 30 June to file their annual returns as soon as possible.

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Health and social care

See ‘AI’ above.

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Development finance

UK impact investor and development finance institution British International Investment (BII) and the Republic of South Africa’s asset management firm, Public Investment Corporation (PIC), have announced the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding to advance impactful investment across Africa. As outlined in the press release, BII and PIC aim to share deal pipelines, facilitating the exchange of investment opportunities across different economic sectors such as agriculture, financial services, infrastructure and climate initiatives.

For more BII news, this article considers some key climate finance investments that BII made in 2024. In total, BII invested £708 million into climate finance in 2024, and over $2 billion in the last three years.

Publish What You Fund, the global campaign for aid and development transparency, has published the 2025 DFI Transparency Index, its second analysis on the level of transparency among leading development finance institutions (DFIs). The report finds that levels of transparency are increasing but there is more work to be done and, among other points, it notes the growing importance of DFI funding as other sources of development funding shrink. The accompanying blog describes that, in the absence of reliable and country-specific data, investors are tending to rely on generic risk assumptions that may misrepresent the investment climate and can push up the costs of capital. See the landing page for more details about the Index.

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Social investment / social impact investment

Impact consultancy Phenix Capital Group has published a report on ‘Private Debt Funds at a Glance’. Based on Phenix Capital Group’s database of impact funds, the report finds a 184% growth in the number of private debt impact funds across the world in 10 years, with 423 funds in total in 2025, and that €66 billion has been raised since 2015.

The Global Impact Investing Network has launched its Climate Solutions Investing Framework: A Resource for Asset Owners to Move from Ambition to Allocation. The framework focuses on the avoidance or removal of greenhouse gas emissions and is designed to provide clear, actionable criteria for identifying and prioritising climate solutions investing strategies that contribute meaningfully to global climate goals. It sets out foundational definitions, concepts and assumptions for understanding climate solutions investing, key considerations for asset owners when assessing strategies, and criteria for evaluating the approaches of asset managers.

Philanthropy Impact Magazine has published the final part (of three) of its Spring 2025 edition, on the theme of ‘Redefining Giving and Investing for Impact – Building the Impact Economy: How innovative models are revolutionising philanthropy and impact investing’. This part of the issue focuses on the evolving landscape of giving, discussing how innovative models can reshape how individuals and organisations contribute to social change.

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International development

In a statement at the UN Security Council meeting on Sudan, James Kariuki (UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN) called for humanitarians to urgently be given the space to operate in Sudan.

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Education

General

Ofsted has announced a new structure for inspection teams in schools and further education following feedback from the Big Listen in 2024 and its consultation on inspection reform earlier this year. The new structure means that all schools and further education inspections will be led by current His Majesty Inspectors (HMI), who are employed by Ofsted, or Ofsted Inspectors (OI) with recent HMI experience. OIs are people contracted by Ofsted who are often serving practitioners in schools and colleges. In addition to this, OIs will be deployed as team inspectors. The aim of these changes is to combine the different expertise of HMIs and OIs.

Ofsted has published a report of its findings on how 21 ‘early adopter’ schools and further education providers are embedding AI and responding to some of its challenges and barriers. In the report, leaders highlighted the benefits of using AI for lesson planning, resource creation and administrative tasks. Key challenges that were identified include the pace of change of AI and the lack of AI tools specifically designed to meet the needs of students in schools and colleges.

Schools

For academy trusts, the Department for Education (DfE) has:

The DfE has announced a £1.7 million pilot that will see ‘lending libraries’ set up in up to 32 local authorities. The libraries will be stocked with a range of assistive technology tools for children with special educational needs and disabilities (including tablets and reading pens to scan text and read it aloud), which schools in the area can borrow and trial. The press release notes that the pilot “gives schools the opportunity to measure the impact of different devices before making an upfront investment”.

Further Education

The DfE has published its college financial handbook 2025 that will be effective from 1 August 2025. For a summary of main changes, see the ‘what has changed in the 2025 edition’ section of the handbook.

The government has released its Industrial Strategy, announcing a £1.2 billion investment in skills per year by 2028/29, with support to be provided for colleges, apprenticeships, and skills training. See the section ‘Enhance skills and accelerate access to talent’ for details.

Also see the ‘General’ Education section above.

Higher Education

Susan Lapworth, the Office for Students (OfS) Chief Executive, has shared a blog post outlining key insights from OfS visits to universities and colleges. The blog also outlines how the OfS is responding to key concerns that have been raised about regulatory burden and wanting more tailored communication.

See ‘Investigations and complaints’ above.

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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.