Public Benefit Consultation Blog – what does it say about public benefit?

Public Benefit Consultation Blog – what does it say about public benefit?

The Charity Commission consultation on its draft revised public benefit guidance launched on 27 June and closes on 26 September. For the first time the consultation invites response via blogs.   Bearing in mind that the draft revised public benefit guidance issued as web based guidance, the Charity Commission may have thought that enabling web based responses was a good idea.

But looking at the number of blog postings, will the Charity Commission be disappointed with the response so far? Perhaps, as is the way with these things, response will increase as the deadline edges closer.

If not, does the volume of postings tell us anything about charities’ engagement with public benefit. Have charities chosen to contact the Charity Commission direct with their views about the public benefit guidance, thus keeping their individual responses away from the public eye? Or does any lack of engagement with this process signal a lack of engagement with the subject of public benefit?

It may be that the challenges involved in running charities in the current climate mean that charity trustees just don’t have the time to respond to this type of initiative. Perhaps public benefit – and guidance about that – just does not feature on any list of priorities for charity trustees. Or is it that charity trustees don’t have the inclination to respond to the consultation, because they don’t think public benefit is relevant for them in the day to day running of their charity? Have they been left with the impression that guidance about public benefit is only relevant for charities that charge fees, given that that is the context in which public benefit issues often appear in news stories.

Whatever the blogs might or might not say about participation in the exercise itself, it is to be hoped that charity trustees do engage in the consultation, given their duty to have regard to the guidance in decisions where the guidance is relevant. If as a charity trustee you find the public benefit guidance difficult to digest, or just difficult, take the opportunity to say so: now is your chance.