Agenda item

To approve and authorise the Charities’ Trustee Annual Reports and Accounts 2022/23 for submission to the Charity Commission.

The Executive Member for Commercial and Community Assets and Chair of the Sub-Committee, Councillor Andrew King, gave an overview of the Charitable Trusts – Trustee Annual Reports and Accounts 2022/23.

Charities registered in England or Wales must send an annual return to the Charity Commission or report their income and spending every year. The Council is sole trustee for seventeen charitable trusts as set out in the report. The Council’s duties as trustee are also set out in the report.

The Trustee Annual Reports (TARs) and Annual Accounts for these charities for the financial year 2022/23 were appended to the report. The report sought authority for the Council’s Finance Team to submit the TARs and Annual Accounts to the Charity Commission by 31st January 2024 which it legally must do each year.

There were no questions from Executive Sub-Committee Members.

Visiting Members raised questions in the following areas:

·        Analysis of expenditure (Note 6) on page 33 of the report.

·       Reigate Baths Fund – money remained despite the Baths no longer being operational. Suggestion to use for other local sporting clubs.

The Chief Finance Officer responded to the first question. The income represents the interest on the value of the trust asset which is credited to the trust and then donated to Council annually. The transactions are based on established accounting practice and represent the beneficial value to the charity in ownership of the asset.

The Monitoring Officer responded to the second question. The Council has successfully completed a review of the charities over the last year. This has provided a body of evidence and good governance, allowing the start of the second phase. This will mean engaging with the Charity Commission as regulator to seek their consent to using the trust assets in a different way. There is a meeting scheduled with the Chair of the Sub-Committee in January to discuss the next steps of the phase two review. Members with any other questions on this were invited to raise them with the Monitoring Officer.

·       Members also asked further questions about when the outcome would be known and the trust assets might be available for alternative use. They also requested an update for the general public, including details of all the assets held in trust with a map of their location.

The Chair emphasised that the review was underway and this needed to be completed before further decisions could be made. Bringing the report to the Executive Sub-Committee demonstrated the trustees’ commitment to see it through to a conclusion.

The Monitoring Officer stressed that the work to date was the first phase – to assemble the body of evidence needed to be able to progress to phase two which was to engage with the Charity Commission about alternative use of trust assets.

RESOLVED – that the Partner, Shareholder and Trustee Executive Sub- Committee:

                 i.          Approves the Council’s Trustee Annual Reports (TARs) and Annual Accounts for 2022/23.

                ii.          Authorises the Council’s Finance Team to submit the TARs and Annual Accounts to the Charity Commission by 31^st January 2024.