Our Charities Group has a national reputation. The group is a cross-disciplinary team comprising specialists from across the firm. The group has many years’ experience of advising charities. It offers a comprehensive service with exceptional depth and breadth to all its charity clients.
We advise voluntary and education sector clients across the full range of their operations including:
• Constitutional/governance
• Legacy Management
• Education
• Employment
• Property
• Planning
• Intellectual property
• Charity accounting services
• Investment services
• VAT
• Other taxation
The Charities Group can advise on a range of topics, for further details of these, please select 'Recent Work' from the menu on the left.
Associated Services
The wider Charities Group has experience of providing specific advice to charity clients on a range of topics including:
Education – working closely with our independent school clients on public benefit issues; advising independent schools on the consolidation, alteration and replacement of Charity Commission schemes; advising on the extent of permissable trading activities by universities and FE colleges consistent with charitable status; advising universities and FE colleges on their involvement with related charities and designing and delivering training programmes for trustees;
Employment – drafting new contracts of employment; amending existing contracts; advising on disciplinary and grievance procedures as well as dismissals and disputes;
Property – acquiring and disposing of property (including leases and gifts) as well as compliance with the Charities Act 1993;
Planning - advising across a range of contentious and non-contentious issues on all aspects of the planning and development process;
Intellectual Property – advising on all aspects of intellectual property law, including the development, management and protection of brands;
Trust Accounting Services – assistance with the administrative running of the charity and cash management (including management of appeals and donations); preparation and submission of annual accounts; external scrutiny of accounts by independent examination; formulation and review of policies; review and analysis of accounts prepared elsewhere; assistance with queries raised by the Charity Commission;
Investment Services – administration of investments for charities providing services such as creating investment portfolios to meet specific requirements; preparing reports which meet Trustee Act 2000 requirements; reviewing existing investments and comparing the performance against agreed benchmarks; liaising with stockbrokers on behalf of the trustees in order to obtain regular reviews of the investments; organising beauty parades of stockbrokers for consideration by the trustees. This firm has approximately £1bn of investments under our control;
VAT - advising on VAT issues affecting charities, including property acquisitions and disposals, VAT recovery, VAT on sponsorship payments and the VAT aspects of transactions to which charities are party;
Other taxation - advising on other tax issues affecting charities, including use of trading subsidiaries and the extent of charitable exemptions.
Related Services