The Town Council has submitted its response to the Charity Commission’s proposed schedule to change the charitable aims of the Bruton School for Girls Trust, the text of which is below.
The deadline for making submissions is August 18th, and you can do so here:
https://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Representation.aspx?PDFName=101454
When Bruton Town Council responded to the previous Bruton Schools for Girls (BSG) Trust consultation on its “proposal to sell charity land and vary charitable purposes”, in December 2023, we stated:
1. The Council acknowledges the necessity of the Trustees’ proposal to dispose of certain land at Bruton School for Girls, Sunny Hill, Bruton, including Designated Land, by way of a freehold sale.2. The Council does not believe there is any need to update the objects of Bruton School for Girls Trust to deliver this sale.3. The Council believes that if they are to be changed, the objects of Bruton School for Girls Trust should be varied to read as follows:
“The provision of education in or near Bruton for girls and boys (provided that such boys should not have attained the age of eight years) and by ancillary or incidental educational activities and other associated activities for the benefit of the community”Evidence was presented to our Full Council meeting on Tuesday evening, 30 July, that a viable proposal to provide a Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) school on the BSG site had been submitted to the both the BSG Trustees and Charity Commission during the above November to December 2023 consultation. The Charity Commission can only agree to make a scheme if the current objects can no longer be carried out, or they have become out of date or ineffective. A viableSEND proposal indicates that the current objects can continue to be carried out. The Town Council would welcome evidence of how the BSG Trustees and the Charity Commission have considered this SEND proposal, and hence why this new schemeis being proposed.
The second point above, that the Council does not believe there is any need to update the objects of Bruton School for Girls Trust to deliver a sale of the land, remains its view. If the land is sold, the proceeds can and should be used for providing education in or near Bruton, for example by supporting girls and boys (under the age of eight years) at local schools such as Sexey’s School, which has deep historical ties with Bruton School for Girls, and Bruton Primary School.
To comment specifically on the wording of the current proposed scheme:
The wording of Clause 3a is poorly drafted, ambiguous and open to misinterpretation.
It is unclear whether the beneficiaries are all “girls up to the age of 18 and boys up to the age of 8 in day or boarding schools in or near Bruton”, or just the subset who would receive bursaries from the Trust.
Clarity on this is essential. Bruton Town Council strongly believes that the former, wider, interpretation is in “the spirit of the original gift”, and demonstrably closer to the current BSG Trust objects. It is extremely concerned that the current Trustees, a majority of whom are employees or Trustees of King’s School,Bruton, would interpret these proposed objects more narrowly,to limit the beneficiaries to only those receiving subsidised places (“bursaries”) at private schools, this benefiting primarily King’s School and its preparatory school Hazelgrove, as these BSG Trustees indeed explicitly proposed last November.
Further, the specific word“bursaries” is open to undesirably narrow interpretation, not in “the spirit of the original gift”, nor sufficiently close to the current BSG Trust objects. The wider definition “TO PROVIDE SCHOLARSHIPS, BURSARIES AND PRIZES TO PUPILS OF ANY SUCH SCHOOL OR SCHOOLS AND TO GIVE SUCH PUPILS GENERAL OR SPECIALISED INSTRUCTION OF THE HIGHEST CLASS” in the Charitable Objects of the Bruton School for Girls Charityis also much preferable to the narrow word “bursaries”, because it clearly defines a fuller spectrum of beneficiaries and charitable activities, as are appropriate for the public benefit of a Charity. It is important to note that there is no requirement under the current objects for education to be provided to pupils attending a private school – the current objects can be continued by the provision of the BSG site for delivery of education by a state school.
The final comment we would make is with respect to the definition of “in or near Bruton”. Bruton is a small rural town, but there are several much larger towns within a 10 mile radius, including Shepton Mallet, Gillingham and parts of Frome, Glastonbury and Sherborne which no one would consider to be part of the community of Bruton.
There are a number of state and private schools at the periphery of the 10 mile radius such as Millfield Prep, Gillingham School, Whitstone School and the Gryphon School which again would not be considered to have any connection to Bruton.
If the radius set to 10 miles the vast majority of potential beneficiaries would not have any Bruton connection. Bruton Town Council would propose that six miles is a more appropriate radius, as it would include two secondary schools outside the town with a strong Bruton connection – Ansford in Castle Cary and King Arthur’s Academies in Wincanton, where many Bruton children are educated. It would also include Upton Noble CofE VC and Ditcheat Primary Schools, which share the East Somerset Federation with Bruton Primary School, and Hazelgrove, the Kings Preparatory School, as well as King’s, Sexey’s and Bruton Primary in Bruton itself.
A six mile radius would avoid including communities with no Bruton connection.
