Charities in Northern Ireland with an income of below £20,000 will not be required to register with the regulator, the devolved government has proposed.
Following a review of charity regulation, published in January, the Northern Ireland government's only rejection related to the requirement that all charities in NI should be required to register.
The government now plans to draft legislation that would see the introduction of a £20,000 annual income threshold below which charities would not be required to register.
To support this work, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has published plans to work with the government to introduce the threshold from next year.
Introduced in March, the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 allows for the introduction of such a threshold through subordinate legislation at some future point, if it is deemed appropriate.
The government-commissioned review did not recommend a threshold, as the panel argued you cannot regulate what you cannot see and that the principle of registration, with the reputational and public confidence benefits arising from it, outweigh the disadvantage of mandating registration.
But in its response, the Department for Communities said “the potential benefits to small charities outweigh the risks to public confidence that the introduction of a threshold could raise”.
The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland (CCNI) has also opened a consultation on how it will develop over the next three years.
As part of a 12-week consultation, running to 6 February 2023, the CCNI is calling on anyone interested to share their views on the proposals within the two draft plans.
People can respond to both plans, or to one of them and the CCNI has said it wants to hear views from across the sector and the public, especially those of smaller charities from both rural and urban areas.
The regulator is developing a new strategic plan alongside a new engagement strategy, both of which are being undertaken following the Independent Review of Charity Regulation commissioned by the minister for communities in January 2021.
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