Charitable Purpose

The Charities Act 2011 sets out an exhaustive list of recognised descriptions of purpose, opening with: 'A purpose falls within this subsection if it falls within any of the following descriptions of purposes—'. The list that follows includes, among others, 'the prevention or relief of poverty;' and 'the advancement of education;', alongside purposes such as the advancement of religion, health, human rights, environmental protection, and animal welfare, plus a residual category for purposes analogous to those already listed or recognised under the pre-2006 law of charity.

Falling within one of these descriptions is necessary but not sufficient on its own — the purpose also has to pass a second, separate test. The Act defines that test as follows: 'In this Act "the public benefit requirement" means the requirement in section 2(1)(b) that a purpose falling within section 3(1) must be for the public benefit if it is to be a charitable purpose.' A purpose can therefore match one of the statutory descriptions exactly and still fail to be charitable if, on the facts, it does not actually benefit the public.