Opinion: New name, but nothing changes?

By Nick Seddon, Third Sector, 25 June 2008

Since the Charity Commission's landmark ruling in 2004 to allow local authorities to convert their cultural and leisure trusts into charities, people have been asking: "When is a charity not really a charity?"

The anxiety mostly revolves around independence. Many of these leisure trusts take most of their funding from statutory sources - remaining financially a part of the local authority, for instance. (This happens, incidentally, despite the fact that the whole idea was that service delivery by charities would save the council...