From 1^st January 2012, charities that are companies or industrial and provident societies (IPS) can apply to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) to convert to a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO). Previously it was only unincorporated associations or trusts who could take advantage of this change. We help Scottish Charitable Companies become SCIOs.

However, the conversion of a company or IPS to a SCIO may only take place if:

• In the case of companies, the company has more than one member

We have been asked this question by a number of charitable clients, what is Gift Aid and what are the Gift Aid rules?

Gift Aid is a simple way for your charity to increase the value of donations of money from taxpayers by claiming back from the Government the basic rate of tax paid by the donor.

When an individual, sole trader or partnership gives money to your organisation through gift aid, you can take their donation, which is money they have already paid tax

Since April 2011, existing unincorporated charities have been able to apply to change their legal form to the new legal entity of a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO). What are the advantages of becoming a SCIO?

Some of the advantages of becoming a SCIO are:

• Liability of charity trustees is limited and members are not liable to contribute to the assets if it is wound up.
• It has a legal personality and can undertake transactions in its own right.
• Single regulator - OSCR.
• Title to

Does your Will include a Legacy to Charity? If you are thinking of doing this there are some facts you may want to consider.

• Around 80% of us support charities during our lifetime.
• 35% us want to leave the bulk of our estate to loved ones but like the idea of giving something back by way of donation on death to charities that we consider worthy of support.
• Surveys indicate less than 10% of the population actually leave a legacy

Making provision for Charities could

Under the procurement regulations, an organisation engaged in a procurement exercise should allow a 'standstill period' of 10 days to elapse between notifying the tenderers of the successful party and awarding the contract. If an unsuccessful tenderer raises a legal challenge to the procurement process during the standstill period, the organisation cannot proceed to award the contract without first obtaining an order from the court.

In a recent case from Northern Ireland (Rutledge Recruitment and Training Limited v Department for Employment and Learning)

A Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) is a new legal body (with effect from April 2011) for charities registered in Scotland.

What is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation?

• It is not subject to the same reporting and regulatory requirements as a company.
• It can enter into transactions on its own behalf, rather than by its charity trustees on its behalf.
• The charity trustees are in general protected from incurring personal liability.? (However this protection is not absolute and charity trustees individually may be held responsible

Climate change burden
Real burdens? ?Boring?, you may say?. Indeed, often little consideration is given to imposing real burdens or conditions upon the sale of land or property. After the introduction of?legislation in 2010, however, real burdens have become more attractive to charities, housing associations and individuals with an environmental conscience as they can now be used to combat climate change.

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 creates a concept known as a 'climate change burden', which must have as its purpose the

The Bribery Act 2010 will come into force on 1 July 2011. The Act sets out a range of bribery related offences which could give rise to prosecution for both organisations and individuals.

The offences include:-
1.Giving bribes
2.Receiving bribes
3.Bribery of a foreign Public Official
4.Failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery

The definition of a bribe is a broad one and can include any payment or other benefit which is intended to induce or reward the improper performance of a public function or

Clients continue to have a lot of questions concerning the procurement process and rightly so. The risk of getting it wrong can be very costly for an organisation. So just how do you get the procurement process right?

A common pitfall under the procurement regulations is a failure to make the distinction between selection and award criteria. Such failures can be costly, leading to a challenge under the regulations. Although it seems that there is little guidance in the area, there are some useful hints

Charities will no longer have to obtain signed gift aid declarations on the first £5,000 of small donations per year in order for those donations to qualify for the tax relief, Chancellor George Osborne announced in his Budget speech.

Gift aid will be automatically applied to the donations. Osborne said 100,000 charities would benefit from this to the tune of £240m. The announcement was the first of a number of major new initiatives affecting charities which Osborne described as "the most radical reforms to charitable