Introduction to the consultation

Welcome to the Charity Commission’s public benefit consultation site.

The Charity Commission is consulting on its revised public benefit guidance. This will replace our existing guidance Charities and Public Benefit and Public Benefit and Fee-charging.

We have written our revised guidance in a very different way to our previous guidance, so that it is more suited to being read online. You can take a tour of it in 'View our new guidance'

We want trustees to have enough information to:
  • understand the public benefit requirement
  • understand their public benefit duties
  • understand how to report on their charity’s public benefit
  • have confidence when making decisions that advance their charity’s purposes for the public benefit
  • be able to quickly find key messages in our public benefit guidance
  • be able to find more detailed guidance on aspects of public benefit in those areas where they need it
This consultation will help us to assess what further work we need to do to achieve this.

Our guidance is written primarily for charity trustees but whether you’re a charity trustee, a professional adviser working with charities, the beneficiary of a charity, or an interested citizen: your thoughts are important to us and we want to hear from you.

You can participate in this consultation by commenting on this blog or by emailing us your thoughts.  You can find out how in 'Having your say'

The comments we receive as a result of this consultation will help us shape the public benefit guidance we provide for trustees.

We hope you will take this opportunity to have your say about our public benefit guidance, and thank you for your time and thoughts

Dame Suzi Leather and Sam Younger
Chair                             Chief Executive