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CHARITIES ACT 2006
REGISTRATION OF LOCAL CHURCHES
At the General Assembly of the United Reformed
Church in July 2008, a report was given on progress made with regard to
the registration of the assets of local churches under the terms of the
Charities Act 2006. Appropriate governing documents were approved by
Assembly and a small group of URC Trustees has been working to prepare
guidance notes to assist those churches affected, to register in
accordance with the requirements of the Act. Throughout this process,
the Trustees have been in consultation constantly with their legal
advisers and the Charity Commissioners.
Appropriate guidance notes have been drafted
for local churches and for the Synods, which will have to implement the
registration procedure. In the September edition of 'Reform' it is
announced that “These URC guidance notes will be available from synod
offices and will be displayed on the URC website with effect from
September 1, 2008.”
Unfortunately, it has not
yet been possible to agree these guidance notes with the Charity
Commissioners and they have suggested that the following notice be
posted on the URC website until matters can be clarified:
"We are still in
discussion with the Charity Commission regarding the best way to support
our synods and churches in the charity registration process.
We understand that there
will be an announcement from the Office of the Third Sector in the next
week to ten days regarding registration of excepted charities.
Immediately after this
the Charity Commission will be publishing new material on its web-site
explaining in more detail the process by which the formerly excepted
church charities should apply for registration. We have been invited to
make a link from our web-site directly through to these pages.
We can confirm that URC
charities will NOT need to start applying for registration until January
2009.
We are continuing to
work with the Commission and other excepted church charities to make the
process as straightforward as possible for all concerned."
Whilst the Trustees are
disappointed not to be able to advise churches definitively about
registration procedures, they agree that it is better to get the
information right. The Trustees will therefore endeavour to ensure that
the best possible advice is included on the URC website and distributed
to synod offices as soon as they have the requisite information from the
Charity Commission.
Revd Michael J. Davies
– for the URC Trustees.
August 29, 2008
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