Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
CIO is the latest legal structure available to charities, and came in to force in December 2012.
A CIO :
- Is an incorporated form of charity which is not a company, regosters with the Charities Commission only and not with Companies House.
- Is only created when it is registered by the Charities Commission
- Can make contracts in its own right
- Has trustees that will usually have limited liability or no accountability for the debts of the CIO.
There are two models of CIO
- Basic model for charities where the only voting members are the charity trustees
- Association model for charities with a wider membership including voting members other than the trustees.
For some years, Mudiad Meithrin has reccomended the 'Charitable Incorporated Organisation' model for the constitution and legal structure of cylchoedd meithrin voluntary management committees.
This model protects committees and limits committee members' financial liabilities (to nothing) but requires presenting a set of annual accounts to the Charities Commission.
We would encourage every Cylch Meithrin to establish itself as a CIO (rather than a classic charity). It's not an easy process (and if the Cylch is already registered with CIW it requires re-regstration) but support is available from Mudiad Meithrin - via 'Yr Wyddfa' membership - and as such several cylchoedd have registered themselves as a CIO.
Click here to see more information on Charitable Incorporated Organisations on the WCVA website.
Click on the links below to see examples of constitutions for a CIO.