The Excepted Church Charity Programme

The latest information from the Charity Commission which can be found here

Excepted Church Charities are local church charities:

* Associated with the relevant bodies which includes the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches; and
* Established wholly or mainly for the purpose of public religious worship

are excepted from the requirement to register as charities by The Charities (Exception from Registration) Regulations 1996 as amended.

This means that although the law recognises them as charities they do not have to register.

Since 31 January 2009 such charities with an annual income of more than £100,000 have been required to apply for registration unless we issue a written determination to the contrary. We will not issue such a determination unless we are satisfied that a charity's income has only exceeded the registration threshold because of exceptional circumstances, such as the receipt of a substantial grant for a purpose that will not be repeated for the foreseeable future.

The Charity Commission says also this

For excepted charities with an annual income of less than £100,000 the exception from registration has been extended until 2012. This will allow time for a review of the 2006 Act to take place in 2011 and for the recommendations arising from it to be considered. We expect that the review will look at registration thresholds generally.

It may be that we will all need to register our Meeting Houses/Chapels as charities - so keep an eye out and prepare your committee for this - it is not as daunting as it may seem.