Life Education Blue Mountains is about to have its charity status revoked by the national charities regulator but the group's main body said it hasn't been in existence for years and it's just the government cleaning up the charity house.
The Hazelbrook charity, which was set up in 1989 to help tackle issues like bullying and drug abuse in primary and early high school children, is entitled to a range of tax concessions but was one of 80 charities in NSW set to have their registration revoked by the national regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) yesterday.
The charity had not submitted its annual report required by law and had not been in contact with the ACNC since its establishment in early December 2012 and had until yesterday to contact the ACNC.
But the St Marys-based chief executive officer of Life Education, Jay Bacik, said it was just the government cleaning house.
"They're cleaning up an anomaly," he said. "The committee hasn't existed for a long time, it was part of an old system. I didn't even know Blue Mountains had a committee."
Life Education is the largest, independent, Australian health education provider for school children aged 5-13 years. With the mascot of Healthy Harold, the group tackles issues like bullying, drug use and obesity.
Mr Bacik said all operations of Life Education were organised through head office and there was now one charity number instead of the 30 or so formally used by their charity.
ACNC commissioner Susan Pascoe stressed the importance of having an accurate and up-to-date charity register.
Almost 4,000 charities have been deregistered since the establishment of the ACNC in 2012.
"Revoking the charity status of organisations that we believe are no longer operating is necessary to maintaining and building the register - Australia's first free, searchable, database of registered charities.
"To date the register has received over 450,000 views. It's important that we continuously work to verify the information, so that donors, funders and members of the public have access to reliable and credible information."
Mr Bacik said many of the outfits on that revoked charity register would have gone out of business long ago.
He said his group was on the lookout for a new group of volunteers in the Blue Mountains to run school bookings. Details: Life Education NSW on 9673 3222.
