25/10/07

Save the charitable status of John Wheatley College. Sign the petition!

Petition to the Parliament’s Petition Committee

We the undersigned support the Petition to the Scottish Parliament's Petitions Committee to require the Scottish Government to take the necessary steps to ensure that John Wheatley College can pass the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act's ‘Charities Test’.

The above text is the petition that you can sign to help John Wheatley College to retain Charitable status. The petition is available in the reception at both college campus and in the Bridge Library.

Loosing charitable status will mean having to pay more to keep all current services or a cut down.

Download the petition and get signatures to help!

You can download the petition and the accompanying flyer and help out to get as many signatures as possible.

Flyer for John Wheatley College Petition, pdf 102kb.

Petition to retain Charitable Status for John Wheatley College, pdf 32kb.

Please forward signed sheets before the 16th of November to:

John Wheatley College
Ian Graham (Principal)
1200 Westerhouse Road
Glasgow
G34 9HZ

Background Information

The recent decision of the Office of Scotland’s Charities Regulator (OSCR) could create serious financial problems if the College loses its charitable status.

The College was one of sixteen organisations which volunteered to take part in a pilot review by OSCR in preparation for the full Rolling Review of all 23,500 of Scotland’s charities under the new legislation. The Act is designed to ensure charities prove public benefit but there is a fundamental problem for the FE sector as the legislation states that, to be a charity in Scotland, an organisation must be independent from control of Scottish Ministers or Minister of the Crown. As Ministers have ultimate financial responsibility for our sector - as they should - we have a fundamental sticking point.

The irony is that the College, which clearly demonstrates public benefit and operates in some of Scotland’s most deprived and excluded communities, is denied charitable status whilst independent fee-paying schools can continue to benefit from charitable activities and other trust funding.

The impact will be significant. The new East End campus was built using substantial contributions from funds which support only charitable organisations. In addition, charitable status exempts the College from VAT in a number of areas. In all, some £20m per year will be lost to the 43 colleges in the FE sector.

Principal Ian Graham said, “We are not in favour of being given an exemption because then it would appear that we were not truly a charity."

One way round the situation would be if the Executive transferred ministerial responsibility to the Scottish Funding Council, which is an independent body.

“The review was very thorough. There is nothing we can do about OSCR’s decision – it lies in the hands of the Executive.”

The College will retain its charitable status in the meantime but has two years to comply with the legislation and the issue is being considered by the Executive at the moment. Watch this space….

For further information

Please contact Lesley Lang, Marketing Manager
Tel: 0141-588 1567
E-mail: llang@jwheatley.ac.uk