Respond to Charities Act Public Benefit Consultation—30 June Deadline

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship response to the Charity Commission’s Consultation on The Draft Supplementary Guidance on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Religion is now available on the Christian Concern for our Nation websites. The handouts from the Charities Challenge Conference that took place on 27^th May 2008 are also available.

Please Respond to the Consultation

Whilst time is short, we urge every Christian charity, church and individual to respond to the Charity Commission’s Consultation. It is important that the Charity Commission knows that it cannot squeeze the church into the secular mould and that Christian organisations will not stand by and see their freedom to preach the Gospel in other countries, or to restrict their membership in this country curtailed. The Charity Commission must be told that it is not their role to assess the beliefs of religious groups, or to determine which viewpoints we may promote.

Practical details:

The deadline for responses is 30^th June 2008.

Every Christian charity and individual is welcome to respond.

All responses should be headed ‘Consultation on the Draft Supplementary Guidance on Public Benefit and the Advancement of Religion’.

Send your Response by post to the following address:

Charity Commission Direct
PO Box 1227
LIVERPOOL
L69 3UG

You can also send it by e-mail to: publicbenefit@charitycommission.gov.uk

Please provide the following information as part of the introduction to your response, in the order listed below:

1. Organisation/Charity name (if applicable)

2. Charity number (if applicable)

3. Contact name

4. Position within organisation (if applicable)

5. Contact number

6. Contact address

7. Contact e-mail

8. Confidentiality Statement (Whether you are content that your response is made public—see below)

9. Consultation response/answers to consultation questions

If you represent a charity, please also state your organisation’s charitable aims.

The Consultation Document can be accessed via the link below:

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Library/publicbenefit/pdfs/pbarsum.pdf.

A free hard copy of the Consultation can also be ordered from the Charity Commission by telephoning 0845 300 0218.

Our response to the Consultation can be found at the following link:

http://www.ccfon.org/docs/LCF_FINAL_Response_to_Consultation_on_ Public_Benefit_and_Religion_June_2008.pdf

The handouts and notes from our Charities Challenge Conference are available by clicking here:

http://www.ccfon.org/charitieschallenge.php

The Christian Institute’s has also drafted an excellent response:

http://www.christian.org.uk/issues/2008/charities/cidraftresponse_june2008.doc.

The Charity Commission’s analysis of the relevant law can also be obtained at the link below:

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Library/publicbenefit/pdfs/pblawrr.pdf.

Confidentiality

Responses to the consultation will be published unless a reason is given for keeping them confidential. For those who have concerns the Commission states that:

If you object to any of the information (including your personal details) which you are giving in response to the consultation being published, please say so. It would be helpful for any such objections to be supported with an explanation of why you regard the information to be confidential so that a decision can be made as to whether there are grounds for not publishing such information.

For further information, please see the Charity Commission’s website at the following link:

http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/publicbenefit/pbar.asp.