Part 1: Purposes, Powers and Governing Documents Section 3: Powers of unincorporated charities Amendment to the charity’s purposes
Section 280A(10) lists the matters which the Charity Commission must have regard to in deciding whether to give effect to an amendment which would alter the purposes of a charity. These are the same matters that the Charity Commission must consider when it is deciding whether to consent to a change of purposes by a charitable company or CIO (see sections 1 and 2, and paragraphs 22 to 24 and 29 above).
	The outcome of this section, in combination with sections 1 and 2 (inserting new section 198(2A)(a) and 226(2A)(a)), is that the Charity Commission has a uniform set of considerations to consider when deciding whether to consent to the trustees changing the charity’s purposes, regardless of whether the charity is a company, CIO or unincorporated charity.
	In the case of charitable trusts, it will remain possible for the Charity Commission to make a cy-près scheme changing the purposes of the charity, in which case sections 62 and 67 of the CA 2011 will apply. However, the regime in sections 62/67 and the regime in section 280A are distinct, and only one or the other would be used in respect of any particular proposed change. There is a slight difference between the two regimes: sections 62/67 refer to the spirit of the original gift, whereas section 280A refers to the purposes of the charity when it was established. That difference arises in order to secure consistency between all types of charity when the trustees themselves seek to make a change (since for companies and CIOs there will not always be an "original gift"), and because sections 62/67 have a different, and in some respects wider, application than the new section 280A.