Page 10 - Demo

The key factor is that the institution must have been established for exclusively charitable purposes, to make this complicated, whether something is a charitable purpose involves looking at two elements (Section 2,
Charities Act 2011):
(1) The rst element is that the purpose must be one that is recognised as charitable and falls within the purposes set out in the Charities Act 2011
There are 13 purposes set out in Section 3 of the Charities Act 2011. The most common purposes that are charitable which apply to many of your religious institute charities are the prevention of the relief of poverty, the advancement of education and/or the advancement of religion.
(2) The second element is that the purpose must be one that is for the public bene t
This means that even if the purpose for which your institution exists falls within a recognised charitable purpose it will not be a charitable purpose unless it is bene cial to the community. It will also have to bene t suf ciently wide enough section of the public.
It used to be the case that there was a presumption that the advancement of religion, as a purpose, was for the public bene t. This presumption was removed by the Charities Act 2006 which provided that “it is not to be presumed that a purpose of a particular description is for the public bene t”.
So, if an institution has charitable purposes and those purposes are for the public bene t, then the institution will be a charity. In terms of the structure you set up to hold your assets, this will almost certainly be for charitable purposes and those purposes will be for the bene t of the community
as a whole.
If the institution is a charity, then it must register. Section 30 of the Charities Act 2011 provides that “every charity must be registered in the register” maintained by the Charity Commission. The only exception to this is certain charities that have been exempted from registration, certain charities that have
(It is worth noting that slightly different law applies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.)
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