PTA funds question.

[alison10011]

Hello, I wonder if anyone can help me? I?ve been asked to find out if there is a limit to the amount of money the PTA can keep in their account and also if there is a timescale in which it needs to be spent after it?s been raised.

Obviously the money has been raised for the benefit of the school and the children so we don?t want to hang on to it but conversely we don?t want to spend it for the sake of spending it.

We have approx £9k in the account which has been built up from almost nothing in the last 5 years by the previous chair and I am hoping to build on this amount year on year. We are approached by the school at every committee meeting with a request for money and these requests are rarely declined so we?re not miserly with it.

Thank you in advance for any advise.

No there are no time limits or amount limits. We have over £14k in our account built up over the years, which is going to the BIG playground projects as well as little treats for the kids here and there.
What I would say though is that to keep parents motivated they should see some of their fundraising efforts being used to benefit their own children rather than years after they have left.
HTH

As a parent and also chair of a PTA I would say you need to spend more money!
If I had a child in yr 6 I would pissed off being asked for more money if my child wasn't seeing the benefit of the money raised already.
We have about £7k in the bank at the moment (secondary) but are planning a big spend on the library. We will be keeping about £2k back for school council/department wishlists but aim to allocate £5k over the next few weeks for the library project.

Your PTA is a charity, governed by the Charity Commission rules and guidance.

There is no LEGAL limit on how much you can hold in the pot
but there is most certainly a MORAL issue that funds raised should be spent while the parents and children who have coughed up are there to enjoy it.

I was PTA treasurer for 7 years.
We aimed to spend the money about every three years - matched funding and grants meant that even with a small school we could do a £10,000 project every couple of years.

We always held £1,000 in reserve to cope with things like the summer fete being a washout and not covering costs

Why aren't you spending the money?

There will be families that have passed right through school in this time, making their contributions, and their children will have seen nothing from it. This doesn't seem very fair or much of an incentive to get involved.

should really read the rest of the responses first :)

Glad we are all in agreement.

Many thanks for the responses, I do agree we need to spend some (I took over as Chair in October and have already spent a reasonable amount of it). I can assure you that lots of things have been funded in the last few years and no-one is saying we can't spend it but I certainly don't want to run the coffers dry in my 1st few months :-)

I will be approaching the school and committee to see what we can do to spend, spend, spend.

Thank-you for your help.

Our chair said that considering the low interest rates and higher inflation it is better to spend the money now as you lose money in real terms if you keep it as item x will cost more money in 2 years time than the interest you can earn on it in the bank in that time. Unless you forsee a big spend on something which you are saving for you might as well spend.

agreed if you have a good VFM project to spend it on.
We learned that capital tangible projects were ALWAYS better than invisible stuff

If you are a registered charity, then there are guidelines covering whether you should keep funds hanging around.

Pfft
please link
as both the RNLI and Guide Dogs for the Blind hold MULTIPLE years of income in reserves

Pfft, that's exactly what I've been tasked with researching so if you could provide a link to back that up I'd appreciate it. Thank-you.

I believe there is a limit as to how much funds a PTA charity can hold and would suggest you call the charity commission who will be ale to advise you accurately.

Aside from the legal aspect you can not keep building up funds for no purpose .. You will start alienating parents.

www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/rs3a.aspx
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=209617&SubsidiaryNumber=0
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=209603&SubsidiaryNumber=0

its all on the Charities Commission website - as will be details of your PTAs

www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/rs3a.aspx
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=209617&SubsidiaryNumber=0
www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/CharityWithPartB.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=209603&SubsidiaryNumber=0

Guide Dogs for the Blind hold an average of 5 years' expenditure - that must be tens of thousands at the very least

You might not be a charity, I'm Chair of the school PTA and we have recently left the Charity Comm as we didn't see any benefits from being members.

It might be worth looking on the PTA website. I've found them really helpful in the past.

Our school has similar funds and it really grates on parents when they are constantly asked to fork out for stuff given the amount that is sat in the account, while people are struggling to make ends meet.

If you are holding onto funds then when you publish your accounts you really need to let the parents know about the projects you are planning to fund.

I've never seen a cap on reserves and I have been an accountant for two different charities as well as now chair of our PTA.

I'd also argue that what you are arriving in your bank account is not reserves but simply an excess of income over expenditure as you are not deliberately holding the money.
I'd have a word with the head teacher about projects that you can look at funding in the next year. We have recently bought a playhouse for KS1, there were a further 6 donated from the RAF, a building firm and the CO-OP which are all decked out as a cafe, post office, shop, school and police station (along with a few others).
It's a great resource and can be used whatever the weather.
The PTA have also recently bought some bike sheds as well.

I can understand why Guide Dogs need to hold onto money to keep themselves going, but a PTA has minimal costs surely?

arriving should be holding

Fortyplus
Guide dogs paid £550,000 to their investment managers alone in the last year!

mrspnut
I agree that there are no statutory caps - the fist link is to the CC guidance thereon

pantaloons
I presume your turnover is under the £10k then as HMRC are clamping down on unincorporated associations and their member's liability

OP
basically any PTA should be working towards named projects which have an expenditure value and completion date
if they do not, stop donating and oust the committee

The advantage of spending, and being seen to be spending, is that it reminds parents what it is the PTA actually does. You can dismiss it as trivia/pointless, but then when your Little Jimmy is provided with a proper strip for that football tournament and you're told the PTA funded it, you start to see the point of all those cake sales and raffles.

And yes, you need to be very mindful of pupil/parental turnover. You can't expect parents to dig deep for something that might not happen until their child has left the school.

Are there any large initiatives that the PTA can help with? If the Governors have recently done a premises risk assessment they may have some ideas of what needs improving. Are you in touch with the Chair, or is there a Governor rep?

Talkin, yes we are a small school, and although the PTA is active there are only so many events/sponsor things/discos parents can fund.

We do spend as we raise though, and find this a good incentive. We generally put on posters and adverts for events what the aim of the event is. So when we needed £3000 for playground equipment the posters said so, then the School Council picked a range they fancied and some of it was installed, a thank you poster also went up. We still need more playground kit and are raising/saving again, but I really think that having some installled part way through has kept the children interested.

To keep money coming in it helps to keep the children involved with choices for spending and event ideas and the parents up to date on progress and where their money went.

are you a reg charity? think you legally have to be once you take more than £5000 a year. agree good to look at match funding opportunities as you have such a large sum - be great if you could double it for something!