Editorial: Let's drop the idea that public benefit is a class war in disguise

By Stephen Cook, Third Sector, 26 March 2008

The subject of fee-charging charities has flared up again as the Charity Commission continues with its often thankless task of consulting and deciding on how charitable organisations should demonstrate that they provide public benefit.

When it published the final version of its general guidance in January, some specialist lawyers warned that the section on fee-charging charities needed tidying up, and now its more detailed draft guidance for that sub-sector has brought some of the independent charitable schools out on the warpath. Their main complaint...