Charitable Incorporated Organisation
The Charities Act 2006 introduces this new legal form of incorporation, designed specifically and exclusively for charities. The charitable incorporated organisation or CIO is not yet available but the Charity Commission plans to issue draft model constitutions for consultation in the summer of 2008. It is likely that the new structure will be available for eligible organisations in 2009.
Features
- CIOs will not have to register with Companies House – only with the Charity Commission and registration will be free.
- Rather than having to comply with Companies House requirements as well as those of the Charity Commission, reporting and filing requirements will be simplified and only one annual return will be required by the Charity Commission.
- Model forms of constitution will be produced by the Charity Commission.
- Merger and reconstruction will be more straightforward.
- Currently, a registered charity which is an unincorporated association which wishes to incorporate has to register a new company with Companies House, apply to the Charity Commission for the new company to be registered as a charity and then dissolve the original charity and transfer the assets to the new charitable company. The CIO will make this process redundant and replace it with a simpler procedure.