2008 Symposium on Public Benefit
ISC's Symposium on Public Benefit was opened by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, Chairman of the Independent Schools Council. She welcomed delegates, explained the work of ISC in relation to the Charity Commission's Guidance so far and introduced the agenda for the day.
Session 1: Meeting the Public Benefit Test - The Charity Commission's Perspective
Dame Suzi Leather, Chair of the Charity Commission began the session by thanking ISC, and in particular Jonathan Shephard, for all the help provided in the consultation on the general guidance (Supplementary guidance is to be published in the week beginning 10th March). Dame Suzi recapped on the journey to the current position, from the chain reaction initiated by the Deakin Report, to the general guidance produced in early 2008.
Session 2: Public Benefit as it applies to Educational Charities
Peter Luxton, Professor of Law at Cardiff University, detailed the legal requirements and began by recapping the law prior to the Charities Act 2006. He noted that charity law had develop across the centuries. His overarching belief was that educational charities have charitable purpose and satisfy public benefit.
He stated that public benefit has the same meaning since the Act as it did before and observed that education is by nature for the public benefit. He noted that the Charity Commission cannot change the law.
Session 3: Charity Commission Guidance
Rosie Chapman, Executive Director of Policy & Effectiveness at The Charity Commission, previewed the sub-sector guidance, and detailed the consultation process before explaining the interpretation of the guidance and what reporting requirements are likely to mean for independent schools. She discussed what schools need to do practically to achieve these principles, and stated that it is not expected that all schools will do the same.. She concluded by stating that independent school sector's contribution is to be cherished and the Charity Commission will do its best to help independent schools to demonstrate the requirements.
Session 4: What the Guidance means for Independent Schools
Jonathan Shephard, Chief Executive of ISC, explained that for schools which are charities, charity should be intrinsic, and public benefit should suffuse what charities do. All children have a charitable need, and the advancement of education is therefore charitable. He emphasised the fact that the central activity for independent schools is educating children. He noted that the indirect effects of education should not be ignored, as education improves society and is therefore to the public benefit.
There will be a full briefing from ISC's General Counsel, Matthew Burgess, at the end of March.
Ideas for increasing public benefit
| CHAIR: |
Carl Swift, Public Benefit Researcher, ISC |
| PANEL: |
Nick Brodrick, Headmaster, Holme Grange School. |
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Sarah Counter, Head, Milbourne Lodge Junior School. |
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Marion Gibbs, Headmistress, Jane Allen's Girls' School |
Carl introduced the session citing that the most common question that he is asked in his role at ISC is what do schools have to do to prove they are for the public benefit? There is no a simple answer and this will vary from school to school, and will depend on operation of charitable objectives of that school. There is no yard stick, and it is neither possible nor desirable to construct artificial comparators.
Sarah Counter's presentation outlined what Milbourne Lodge Junior School does in terms of good practice. The primary ethos of the school, Sarah explained, was to strive to help those in need. The school provides benefit to communities locally and nationally and internationally community. Their recent Ofsted report encouraged other Heads to share their good practice. The school offers 65 foundation stage places (through a Surrey CC grant) in an area where nursery places are at a premium. Facilities for foundations stage will also now be improved (not by government funding). Among other things within the school, they are increasing their extended day activities to 250 places per week (with no sure start capital grant). The school is now being visited by state school Heads as an example of good practice. Sarah noted a number of other initiative the school is involved in including, training and inducting teachers at no cost to state; two staff working to degrees childhood education - funded by school; work experience opportunities; parenting skills courses; sharing teaching with state schools; sports field used by state school; local church fellowship has used church; young pupils sing at residential home; holiday sports programmes for young people.
Sarah then went on to discuss in detail the school's support of a Southern African primary school. This fundraising included the teachers, pupils, parents and local community.
Nick Brodrick outlined his school's position and he explained that it had become harder to retain children past year 11. To tackle this, the school offers means-tested 50% bursaries for year 7 pupils, and £10,000 is set aside each year for this purpose. As the bursarial forms are quite difficult to understand, the school Bursar assists parents in filling out the forms. Scholarships are also available at 10-50% (academic, sport, music drama) also helping to retain pupils. Nick went on to explain that "Serving the local community" is now the strapline for the school. Among other initiatives to support the community are shared sports facilities and drama lessons on Saturdays. Holme Grange also supports an international school, this time in Kenya. The school's Head of PE is a shared resource for state primaries in the area. Nick concluded the session by highlighting that schools should not just tick a box, but provide real benefit for those that need it.
Marion Gibbs's presentation went through the variety of initiatives that JAGS offers (see PowerPoint). She began by saying that schools should be looking at the history of the school for examples of community activities that have been in place historically. She also noted that you do not have to have wonderful grounds to form partnerships, and that one option could be to run CPD events. Marion was keen to make it clear that her community partnerships were a two-way street and that JAGS benefitted from schools within the community and the projects they set up together.
Question & Answer Session
| CHAIR: |
Vicky Tuck, Headmistress, The Cheltenham Ladies College & President, GSA |
| PANEL: |
Julian Blake, Partner, Bates Wells & Braithwaite |
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Rosie Chapman, Director of Policy, The Charity Commission |
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Peter Luxton, Professor of Law, Cardiff University |
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Jonathan Shephard, Chief Executive, ISC |
Vicky Tuck opened the session by highlighting that schools do not want to begin using fee income to take legal advice, therefore her school, and GSA are extremely grateful to ISC for their guidance on public benefit so far.
This session considered questions from the delegate audience, including issues such as the new accounting requirements, the SIR form, community cohesion, ISSP, the operating position of the Charity Commission and the possible effects of recession. A minuted transcript of this session is available on request from the ISC offices conference@isc.co.uk.
Closing remarks
Speaker: Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas
Judith thanked everyone for attending the day and hoped that it would prove useful as delegates returned to their own schools and made management decisions. Judith reminded delegates that in June, a series of seminars on how the requirement should be dealt with by independent schools would be run by ISC. She also noted that there would be a Public Benefit update during the ISC annual conference on 3 and 4 June.
She passed on her thanks to all speakers, and extended her thanks to outstanding staff at ISC for an imaginative conference. Finally, Judith gave special thanks to Jonathan Shephard who is shortly to leave ISC. As an outstanding lawyer, she said, he has paid special attention to Public Benefit developments. As Jonathan leaves, ISC's Public Benefit work will continue.
Presentations
Peter Luxton - Professor of Law, Cardiff University
Jonathan Shephard - Chief Executive Officer, Independent Schools Council
Sarah Counter - Head of Milbourne Lodge junior school
Marion Gibbs - Head, James Allen's Girls' school
Speeches
Dame Suzi Leather
Rosie Chapman
Handouts
How James Allen's Girls' School work with local schools and the community.
Brochure for the African Learning Partnership.
Sponsors
Barclays Commercial
Bircham Dyson Bell