Summary and Background to the Bill
3.The Act transfers the property, rights, interests and liabilities of the Ure Elder Fund for Indigent Widow Ladies (“the Fund”) to a new charitable trust and dissolves the Fund. The new charitable trust is constituted by Deed of Trust rather than by Act of Parliament. It has been established by the current Trustees of the Fund and is called the Ure Elder Trust (“the Trust”). The Trust will retain the same charity number as the Fund.
4.The purpose of the Act is to transfer the property, rights, interests and liabilities of the Fund to a new charitable trust. The work of the Trust will not change and it will continue to provide grants. However, the Trustees will be able to increase the amounts that can be distributed annually.
5.The Ure Elder Fund for Indigent Widow Ladies is a Scottish charity (SC003775) registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. In the terms of the Will of Mrs Isabella Elder, the residue of her estate on death was held for charitable purposes in memory of her brother, John Francis Ure’s, great regard for her husband, John Elder. A trust was constituted by her will and the trustees of this part of her estate held the funds for that trust’s purposes. The trust funds were then transferred to be held by the Trustees in terms of the Ure Elder Fund Order 1906. That Order was then confirmed by an Act of Parliament in the Ure Elder Fund Order Confirmation Act 1906 (“the 1906 Act”).
6.The charity in its current form (referred to in these notes as “the Fund”) was constituted by the 1906 Act and amended in 1929, 1956, 1962 and 1971(1). These amendments increased the income threshold under which a beneficiary could make a claim to payment from the Fund until the threshold was removed in 1971. The 1906 Act, as amended, provides that the trustees of the Fund hold the Fund for charitable purposes to primarily benefit widows connected with Glasgow or Govan. The Trustees of the Fund are permitted to pay a maximum of £25 per annum to each selected beneficiary.