So Charity Registration - not a topic I thought “wow I can’t wait for this” and I’m sure not something that, when you get up in the morning, you are excited about for your SU. But these are exciting times for students’ unions, charity registration and the challenges/opportunities that it brings.

NUS have been working with the charity commission to ensure that we recognise the difference between an SU and other organisations so that we can tailor the registration process to our needs and our desires. That’s not saying we have changed the system dramatically from other organisations but that we have ensured our key unique qualities as students’ unions are recognised and that some issues have been ironed out to ensure we maintain our unique approaches.

Whether you like it or not, this year is when we need to work on registration, highlight the public benefit of our unions and how we can represent our members’ needs. Easy, some would think but it’s slightly more complex hence the amount of work and discussion we have had with the Charity Commission to ensure the process is easier for you. In our models, it is still the membership who can remove their representatives. We have ensured that Sabbatical officers can remain as trustees and protected the principle that 50% of the Board can be paid.

Some will worry about registering with the Commission either as an un-incorporated association or as a Company Limited by Guarantee, and that it will limit our campaigning voices of our Unions and halt us from being able to take action. This is not true. By recognising ourselves as Campaigning organisations representing our students’ wants and needs, we can enhance our campaigning work and actually do more. We already have documents available about CC9 the campaigning section (which can be found here)  and are producing guidance about working for your charitable purpose, or avoiding ‘ultra vires’ and busting some of the myths around the subject.

Charity Registration represents the biggest change in laws governing Students’ Unions since the 1994 Education Act – as much as it isn’t the exciting active campaigning work that we were elected to do – it is the key to ensuring that you can continue to do that work and to carry on making the difference to students lives that you do.

NUS are on hand to help you and support you with model documents that you can find here (you need to log in to see this section) and we will also be working with you on it at the Union Development Zone Conference details of which can be found here.

If you have any questions or queries then please do get in touch with myself or Nick Smith.

By the end of this process Charity Registration will be the thing getting you up in the morning!

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