Daniel Robinson puts charity law under the spotlight
The Charities Act 2006 introduced wide-ranging reforms to charity law. In 2012, Lord Hodgson published his root-and-branch review of the Act and some of his recommendations were referred to the Law Commission for further consideration. We consulted on social investment by charities in 2014. We then recommended the creation of a new statutory power for charities to make social investments with a statutory statement of charity trustees’ duties when doing so.
Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill
We drafted a Bill to give effect to our recommendations, which was included within the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill, introduced shortly after the Queen’s Speech. As well as implementing our recommendations on social investment, the Bill would implement the government’s proposals to give further powers to the Charity Commission to protect charities and make provision for the disqualification of charity trustees.
Our current consultation
The Law Commission is now consulting on the remaining issues within its charity law project. We have grappled with a wide range of knotty problems and made provisional proposals for reform. But our proposals are