Charitable incorporated organisation

A charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) is a new form of legal entity designed for non-profit organisations in the United Kingdom.

The main intended benefits of the new entity are that it has legal personality, the ability to conduct business in its own name, and limited liability so that its members and trustees will not have to contribute in the event of financial loss. These are already available to limited companies; charities can be formed as companies, but then they must be registered with both Companies House and the Charity Commission. In contrast, the CIO only needs to register with the Charity Commission. This is expected to reduce bureaucracy for the charity.

The CIO status became available to charities in England and Wales on 4 March 2013. In Scotland, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator began registering Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs) in April 2011.

The idea originated with the Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), Judy Weleminsky, in 1992 and was taken forward by Lindsay Driscoll who was the Head of Legal and Governance at NCVO. A Charity Commission advisory group was set up in 2000 to look at incorporation of charities, and recommended a new form of legal entity. In 2001 the Department of Trade and Industry's company law review steering group likewise recommended a charitable incorporated organisation with a separate legal regime, as company law is aimed at the commercial sector, with corporate governance structured around the assumption that members of a company have a financial interest in it.

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