Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance
BOND submission to the Charity Commission, June 2007
Consultation paper on Charity Commission website
Overview
BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) is the United Kingdom's broadest network of voluntary organisations working in international development (often called non-governmental organisations, or NGOs). BOND was founded in June 1993, on the initiative of 61 NGOs, and now has over 300 members. It is officially recognised by the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID). BOND aims to improve the UK's contribution to international development by promoting the exchange of experience, ideas and information amongst BOND members between networks of NGOs in the UK and internationally, with the UK Government, and between BOND members and other UK bodies with an interest in international development.
BOND welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this Charity Commission consultation on its draft guidance on public benefit. We would like to add our support to the submission made by our colleagues at NCVO; this submission is therefore short, limited to supplementary points relevant to our own members. We also look forward to the sub-sector consultation for charities for the prevention and relief of poverty, during which BOND members will play an active part.
Responses to specific questions
Q1. The guidance is clear and useful; however, it is also quite repetitive and long. It would benefit from a stand-alone summary or concise guide for trustees. Otherwise, we do not think trustees will take the time to read such a long document.
Q2. The principles of public benefit are clearly set out; but greater clarity in some of the questions in section C7 (repeated in section I - Q12) might be useful so that organisations with a very clear public benefit are aware that this is the case. At present the questions are written in a way which is likely to put off organisations with a clear public benefit, but which are not yet charities, from registering, because they raise a large number of concerns. An indicative 'self-assessment' questionnaire could be produced.
The same is true of the bullet points on page 14. We have a particular concern about the third bullet point in Principle 1. We think the phrase, "must not be concerned with fulfilling a political purpose" is not clear enough, and may appear inconsistent with existing CC guidance on charities and political campaigning. Trustees of charities whose aims can be described in terms of the prevention of poverty or of the promotion of human rights, but which are campaigning for a change in the law in furtherance of this aim, are likely to interpret this as barring them from charitable status.
Q3, 6. The guidance takes what we consider to be an unnecessarily conservative interpretation of the legal position on charities and political campaigning. The document itself recognises that what constitutes a public benefit can change over time, and BOND considers that there can be a clear public benefit to the process of campaigning for political change, even where the Commission is not competent to judge the public benefit of the end being campaigned for. We refer the Commission to the report of the Advisory Group on Campaigning and the Voluntary Sector, in which BOND was a participant.