The Regulator for Charities in England and Wales
The Charities Act 2006 created a new Charity Tribunal.
A charity wishing to appeal a legal decision of the Commission can challenge this through the Commission’s decision review process. Previously, if a charity was not satisfied with the final decision the only further route of appeal was by taking the case to the High Court, which tends to be an expensive and complicated process. The Tribunal provides an independent route of appeal for charities which have exhausted the Commission’s decision review process.
That process results in the Commission making what is called a “final decision”. This will sometimes be a decision of members of the Commission’s Board. In other cases, the final decision will either confirm that the original decision was correct or it will substitute a different decision to that which was originally made. It is only at this point, once the decision review process has been exhausted and once a final decision has been made, that the opportunity to make an appeal to the Charity Tribunal normally becomes available. The Commission’s final decisions are published on the Commission’s website.
The Charity Tribunal is part of the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. It is independent of the Commission. The Charity Tribunal’s website provides full details of its procedures and maintains a register of information about ongoing cases and decisions which it has made about previous cases.