IdleRich
IdleRich
Private schools that are stripped of their charitable status will not be able to reopen as businesses, the charities watchdog has warned. Like other charities, independent schools will soon have to meet a public benefit test to keep their tax breaks. But those which fail to meet that test will not be allowed to simply give away their assets for non-charitable aims, the Charity Commission has said.
New draft guidance on fees charged by education charities has been drawn up. The guidelines says fee-paying private schools which automatically had a right to call themselves charities must now pass a public benefit test. This means their benefits must be available to everyone - even those that cannot afford their high fees. Many argue that these charges mean they are effectively private clubs rather than a charitable institution. The Charity Commission suggests that independent schools could offer a number of benefits to the wider community to keep their charitable status. These might include allowing state school pupils to attend certain lessons or events or use their facilities such as swimming pools. They might collaborate more closely with state schools including city academies - state-funded, independently-run schools usually in deprived areas, it says.
In its draft guidance, the commission says: "It is not an option for the trustees of an existing registered charity simply to decide that the organisation will no longer call itself a charity, ask to be removed from the register of charities and keep its charitable land, money and other assets."
Although a charity can wind up, if its governing documents permit, its assets - which may have been raised through donations - cannot simply be transferred to another non-charitable organisation, the commission warned. A commission spokesman used as an example the outcry that would be caused by an animal wildlife charity which suddenly decided it was going to become an organisation run for private profit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7290308.stm
OK, probably won't work out quite like that but the charitable status thing is a joke that can't continue.