Introduction

Welcome to Get Legal from Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive, NCVO

“I am very pleased to welcome you to Get Legal.

Our hope at NCVO is that this important and exciting initiative will demystify legal forms for organisations across civil society – and help them to make more informed choices.

For some time we have recognised that many organisations struggle to get the information they need when they are first established. Research has found that choosing the most appropriate legal and governance structures is complex, and many of the governance problems that organisations suffer later on are a direct result of not being able to access the support they needed at the outset.

NCVO believes that voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises and co-operative organisations are at the heart of an active and vibrant civil society. Get Legal is just one of the ways in which we support and champion these organisations and help them to play their essential role in civil society across the UK.

It is important to emphasise that this initiative is also a collaboration, with input from a range of experts and partners across the civil society spectrum. It cannot hope to provide all the answers you are searching for, but it does aim to be as clear and informative as possible. Creating such a resource is also a process that will continue to develop, and we welcome input and suggestions about how the site can be added to and improved.

I urge to you to make use of this site, to aid your own decision making, and that of the people and organisations you advise or work with. And I wish you well as your organisation prospers."

An introduction from Abbie Rumbold, Partner, Bates, Wells and Braithwaite

“We see this as a ground-breaking initiative which we hope will provide much needed clarity on legal structures for a wide range of organisations. NCVO has led an exceptional partnership of sector leaders working with the Charity Commission and CIC Regulator to produce an invaluable resource. We hope that a wide range of organisations and advisors will benefit from being able to find the answers to their legal structure questions quickly and easily.

BWB has worked with charities and social enterprises for nearly 40 years and is the leading charity and social enterprise law firm in the country. This website is necessarily generic but we have aimed to use our specialist knowledge of the sector to provide advice that understands the context in which charities and social enterprises work, their aims and the challenges they face.”