Principal regulators

Section 13(4)(b) of the Charities Act 2006 enables the Minister of State at the Office for Civil Society to prescribe 'principal regulators' for exempt charities. Principal regulators are likely to be existing bodies or government departments that already oversee a number of exempt charities.

The first three principal regulators, whose new duty began on 1 June 2010 are:

  • HEFCE, responsible for regulating most English higher education institutions (HEIs)
  • Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, responsible for regulating certain museums and galleries and the British Library
  • Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, responsible for regulating Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Other principal regulators will be added to this list as they are appointed.

Duty and objective

Principal regulators must do all they reasonably can to meet the compliance objective in relation to charities within their remit.

The compliance objective is:

'to promote compliance by charity trustees with their legal obligations in exercising control and management of the administration of the charity.'

Principal regulators do not have any of the other objectives of the Charity Commission.

Higher education institutions

Since 1 June 2010 HEFCE has been the principal regulator of the 110 English English HEIs that are exempt charities.

In future another 18 HEIs – which are currently registered charities – may be able to seek to become exempt charities within HEFCE's remit. Until then, they will be regulated as charities by the Charity Commission.

Further information

Last updated 23 June 2010