Clubs and rate relief

The position concerning discretionary rate relief is that it is exactly what it says, discretionary.

Some local councils do offer relief to working men's clubs based on their value to the community, but they are a very small minority. Any club that applied would first have to ensure that they had the interpretation rule and women had full rights within the club.

Local authorities can choose to award discretionary rate relief and tend to do more so for community sports clubs. It can be as much as 100% of the rate bill, or as low as 25%. The average is about 71% for sports clubs.

Local authorities claim back three quarters of the cost of this relief from central government, but have to find the remaining quarter from their own coffers and with budgts being squeezed more and more councils are reluctant to take upon this extra burden. In addition, clubs have to apply for discretionary relief every year which adds to the amount of time and effort club officials have to put in.

The Government have indicated that there is a possibility that clubs could try and claim charitable status but this is a complicated matter. To claim charitable status the club would have to set up a trading company with separate boards of directors for the trading side and the charity side.

It is most unlikely that any clubs within our movement could claim to be charitable clubs unless they were miners' welfare clubs where CISWO have all the expertise involved.

July 2003