With residential care for vulnerable children costing $80,000 to $100,000 per child each year, the High Court approved changes to a century old trust deleting a requirement funds be used exclusively for residential care. Administered by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eliza White Charitable Trust may now assist vulnerable children in the community without taking them into care.
The High Court was told the Trust has total assets of $7.6 million. Annual income, net of expenses, is $232,000. The Trust was established as a charitable trust in 1909 on the death of Eliza White. In today’s terms, her charitable bequest was valued at over five million dollars. She specified funds were to be used to establish and run an orphanage primarily for disadvantaged girls. Following a later special act of parliament and a subsequent court-approved variation to the Trust, this morphed into funding residential facilities for vulnerable children, with priority given those following the Roman Catholic faith. The Church quit all its Eliza White residential facilities in 2013. Full-time care had become uneconomic; the cost of housing each child was so high charitable funds were being run down with very few children benefitting.
The High Court approved a variation to Eliza White’s bequest under the Charitable Trusts Act. This Act allows court-approved variations where changes achieve, as close as is reasonably possible, terms of the original trust. The Church said it did not intend to resume offering residential care. A strategic review advised Trust resources were better used by putting capital from the sale of Church residential homes into an investment trust for the support of vulnerable children.
re Eliza White Charitable Trust – High Court (15.02.19)
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