The Charity Commission did not properly consider whether The Cup Trust met the key legal requirement of being within the jurisdiction of the High Court of England and Wales before registering it as a charity in 2009, and was slow in handling the case. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that The Cup Trust had been set up as a tax avoidance scheme. The Cup Trust submitted claims for £46 million Gift Aid on £176 million of payments from participants to the scheme, but gave just £152,292 to charitable causes between April 2009 and March 2013. The Gift Aid claims have not been paid. The Charity Commission did not give sufficient consideration to issues which might have enabled it to open a statutory inquiry into the Cup Trust in March 2011, and that it was slow to appreciate the potential impact of the case on public confidence in charities, which it has a statutory duty to increase. The Charity Commission did not take sufficient account of the scale and nature of the tax avoidance scheme in its case strategy, was narrowly focused on the legal position and paid insufficient attention to the wider issues of public detriment, which it would have been appropriate to pursue further.

The Charity Commission is not regulating charities effectively and there is a gap between what the public expects of the Commission and what it actually does. The NAO has concluded that the Commission does not do enough to identify and tackle abuse of charitable status. Between 2007-08 and 2013-14, the Commission's annual budget fell 40 per cent in real terms to £22.7 million but the number of main registered charities has remained fairly constant at around 160,000. In response to budget cuts, the Commission has reviewed how it works and successfully reduced demand for its services, but it has not identified what budget it would need to regulate effectively. The Commission makes little use of its enforcement powers, for example suspending only two trustees and removing none in 2012-13. And it can be slow to act when investigating regulatory concerns. The NAO found cases where periods of several months passed during which the Commission took no action. Furthermore, the Charity Commission does not take tough enough action in some of the most serious regulatory cases. It is also reactive rather than proactive, making insufficient use of the information it holds to identify risk. The Charity Commission needs to think radically about alternative ways of meeting its objectives with constrained resources. It also needs to make greater use of its statutory powers in line with its objective of maintaining confidence in the sector; and develop an approach to identify and deal with those few trustees who deliberately abuse charitable status. This report publishes alongside another NAO report, the Cup Trust.

The Committee supports the proposal to introduce a power for the Commission to issue a statutory warning to a charity as a useful tool that falls in between issuing guidance and the opening of an inquiry. The statutory warning process should include safeguards on the face of the Bill including limiting the circumstances in which a warning could be ......

Pearce & Stevens' Trusts and Equitable Obligations provides students with a detailed and stimulating account of the law of equity and trusts. The authors' clear and authoritative writing illuminates the law and its practical application.

Is Australia a 'racist' country? Why do issues of race and culture seem to ignite public debate so readily? Tim Soutphommasane, Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, reflects on the national experience of racism and the progress that has been made since the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. As the first federal human rights and discrimination legislation, the Act was a landmark demonstration of Australia's commitment to eliminating racism. Published to coincide with the Act's fortieth anniversary, this book gives a timely and incisive account of the history of racism, the limits of free speech, the dimensions of bigotry and the role of legislation in our society's response to discrimination. With contributions by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bindi Cole Chocka, Benjamin Law, Alice Pung and Christos Tsiolkas.

Philanthropy – the use of private resources for public purposes – is undergoing a transformation, both in practice and as an emerging field of study. Expectations of what philanthropy can achieve have risen significantly in recent years, reflecting a substantial, but uneven, increase in global wealth and the rolling back of state services in anticipation that philanthropy will fill the void. In addition to this, experiments with entrepreneurial and venture philanthropy are producing novel intersections of the public, non-profit and private spheres, accompanied by new kinds of partnerships and hybrid organisational forms. The Routledge Companion to Philanthropy examines these changes and other challenges that philanthropists and philanthropic organisations face. With contributions from an international team of leading contemporary thinkers on philanthropy, this Companion provides an introduction to, and critical exploration of, philanthropy; discussing current theories, research and the diverse professional practices within the field from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The Routledge Companion to Philanthropy is a rich and valuable resource for students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers working in or interested in philanthropy.