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How will the 2017 Autumn Budget affect the charity sector?

23 November 2017

At 12:30pm yesterday, on 22 November 2017, the Chancellor Philip Hammond stood up in Parliament to deliver his Autumn Budget.

We have listed below the key points affecting charities, although many items supporting employment, training and business will also affect charities as they have to be run as businesses to survive.

Housing

There were announcements to help ease homelessness, boosts for housing associations and support for victims of the Grenfell fire.

  • Long-term goal to build 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s;
  • £44bn in government support, including loan guarantees, to boost construction skills;
  • 100% council tax premium on empty properties;
  • compulsory purchase of land banked by developers for financial reasons;
  • review into delays in permitted developments going forward;
  • £28m for Kensington and Chelsea council to provide counselling services and mental health support for victims of the Grenfell fire and for regeneration of surrounding area;
  • new homelessness task force.

Education

Announcements that could help schools and academies:

  • £40m teacher training fund for underperforming schools in England. Worth £1,000 per teacher;
  • 8,000 new computer science teachers to be recruited at cost of £84m;
  • Secondary schools and sixth-form colleges to get £600 for each new pupil taking maths or further maths at A-level at an expected cost of £177m.

Gift Aid donor benefit rules

Following the review of the Gift Aid donor benefit rules to simplify the rules for charities, the current three monetary thresholds will be reduced to two while all existing extra-statutory concessions will be legislated. Changes will come into effect from April 2019.

Life assurance and overseas pension schemes

From April 2019, tax relief for employer premiums paid into life assurance products or certain overseas pension schemes will be modernised to cover policies when an employee nominates an individual or registered charity to be their beneficiary.

Banking fines

The government has committed a further £36 million of banking fines over the next three years to support armed forces and emergency services charities and other related good causes. This completes the LIBOR Charity Funding scheme, bringing the total of funding committed since 2012 to £773 million.

If you would like to discuss any of these changes and how they might affect you, please contact me or your local UHY charity adviser.

Alternatively, if you would like to read more charity focused blogs please click here.

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