The Charity Commission has published a report on its investigation into the Garfield Weston Foundation, finding lessons to be learned for the sector that charities must remain independent from party politics.

The Garfield Weston Foundation is a grant-making charity with wide general charitable objects. It had an investment income of £38,508,000 in the financial year ending 5 April 2009. During the same period it made grants totalling £26,183,000.

The concerns which led to the opening of the investigation relate to political donations made by Wittington Investments (WIL), an investment company in which the charity held a controlling interest.

The Commission received information from an article in a charity sector publication in July 2009 that WIL had made donations to a UK political party between 1993 and 2005.

The information raised concerns about whether the trustees of the charity had supported a political party by allowing a company in which the charity had a controlling interest to make donations to a political party.

The investigation focused on the nature and extent of the duties of the charity's trustees, as majority shareholders of WIL, in relation to that company's decision to make political donations.

The report also contains wider lessons for the sector concerning the fundamental principle that charities must remain independent from party politics and cannot give support to a political party.

Where companies are required by legislation to seek and obtain shareholders' consent before making political donations or political expenditure and a charity is a majority or significant shareholder in that company, its trustees cannot properly give consent if they know that some of that expenditure will be made to a political party.

The regulatory compliance report (RCR) on this investigation is published at www.charitycommission.gov.uk

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