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.

saucypan
not true
there is NO requirement for a PTA to become a charity
and there are some very large unincorporated association (most trade unions and political parties for example)
but if you ARE a charity, matched funding is much easier to come by - especially if you have members who work for HSBC, Barclays, Nat West, John Lewis or B&Q under their staff schemes

Your PTA should register as a charity if income exceeds £5000 per year. This used to be a legal requirement - but I'm not sure whether that's still the case.

I don't think it is a current legal requirement, it certainly isn't for general charities. I'm not yet a specialist in PTA regs.

Well I'm going back a few years but I was Chairman of my sons' school PTA and I phoned the Charity Commission for clarification and at that time it was definitely a legal requirement if income or bank account balance exceeded £5k. But things may have changed since then.

As a parent, if the funds had been building up for 5 years and nothing done with them in the main then why continue to donate as its not benefitting the children.

As part of the PTA, a 2/3 year large project would likely be passed but nothing longer than that and we make sure plenty of smaller things happen during the year so that parents see that their donations are making a difference to school life.

Hi, I hope I haven't given the impression that none has been spent over the last 5 years? As far as I can see this is certainly not the case. I only took over as Chair in Oct and most of the committee has changed as well so we're still finding our feet hence my original question. To answer another question, we are a registered charity.