ABSTRACT
Obviously it is of singular importance to be able to distinguish between charitable purposes and non-charitable purposes. The former will be valid and enforceable, as well as having other advantages over private trusts, and the latter will be void unless they fall within one of the exceptions to the beneficiary principle considered in the previous chapter. The Charities Act 2006 enacted for the first time a statutory definition of charities after centuries of reliance mainly on case law to lead the way on the type of activities that would be given charitable status. The 2006 Act introduced a statutory definition by reference to a two-step approach – the listing of a variety of charitable purposes and the public benefit test. The 2006 Act contains a list of 13 charitable purposes – 12 specific charitable objects, and a residual category of charitable purposes designed to maintain the courts’ discretion to determine the type of novel activity that ought to be treated as charitable. This is intended to be a comprehensive list of charitable activities. Most of the purposes, in any event, were charitable before the Act was passed. The meaning of ‘charity’ is to be found principally in case law and the opinions of the Charity Commissioners (now the Charity Commission).
