Decision

Uturn UK: Charity Commission decision

Published 16 August 2011

This decision was withdrawn on

This Regulatory decision has been archived in line with our policy because it’s over 2 years old.

Applies to England and Wales

The Commission considered an application from Uturn UK Limited for registration as a charity. It has the following objects:

  1. to advance citizenship and community development by the promotion and activation of the Street Associations initiative which will seek to bring together residents of streets together in local groupings within a framework which will engender civic responsibility and volunteering
  2. to promote the Christian faith and Christian values, with particular emphasis on the Christian faith for its own sake and on the relevance of Christian values to the restoration of a well-functioning community

On the evidence before it, the Commission concluded that the company is not established for exclusively charitable purposes and cannot be entered in the register of charities.

Although phrased as being about community development and civic responsibility, the first object doesn’t fall within what the law has recognised as charitable. Street Associations is not a defined term and the factual matrix does not support the view that street associations as a means will result in an exclusively charitable outcome. The Commission could not form the view on the evidence before it that, even should the first object fall within the description of purposes in s.2(2) of the Charities Act 1993 (as amended by the Charities Act 2006), that it is for public benefit.

The second object may fall within the description of purposes in s.2(2)(c) as advancing religion but it is ambiguous. The Commission did not need to consider whether this second object is an exclusively charitable object in light of its conclusion that the first object was not and as a result the company could not have exclusively charitable purposes.

In reaching its conclusion the Commission is not to be taken as making any judgement in relation to whether street associations are or are not a good thing. As the court has recognised, not everything that is a good thing is charitable.