22/06/2023
Legislative changes come into force from the Charities Act 2022
On Wednesday 14th June 2023, the latest set of changes being introduced by the Charities Act 2022 come into force.
The Charity Commission has updated its existing guidance to reflect these changes, which includes flexibility for trustees when seeking to dispose of charity land and new powers around the use of permanent endowment.
The following changes now in place include simplified legal requirements that charities must comply with before selling, transferring or leasing land, and new statutory powers to enable:
- charities to spend, in certain circumstances, a proportion or all of their permanent endowment fund where the market value of the fund is (£25,000 or less) without Commission authorisation.
- charities to borrow, in certain circumstances, up to 25% of the value of their permanent endowment fund without Commission authorisation.
- charities that have opted into a total return approach to investment to use permanent endowment to make social investments with a negative or uncertain financial return, provided any losses are offset by other gains.
- the Commission to direct a charity to stop using a working name if it is too similar to another charity’s name or is offensive or misleading.
- the Commission to delay registration of a charity with an unsuitable name or delay entry of a new unsuitable name onto the Register of Charities. Working with the principal regulator, the Commission can also use these naming powers on exempt charities.
