Are you a charity? Are you aware of the changes which are coming into force as of 1 April 2024?

As from 1 April 2024, various elements of the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023 will be coming into force and will include:

• OSCR’s increased inquiry powers;
• OSCR being able to remove charities that fail to submit accounts and fail to communicate with OSCR; and
• OSCR refusing a charitable application where there is no clear connection to Scotland.

 A brief summary of these changes are as follows:

 Increased inquiry powers will give OSCR the power to:

• Direct charities to take particular actions. Currently they only have the power to instruct a charity not to do something.
• Appoint interim trustees. This will allow OSCR to assist the charity in certain situations whereby they cannot function due to a lack of charity trustees.
• Inquire into former charities and former charity trustees.
• Require charities and others to provide information.

Remove charities that fail to submit accounts and to respond to OSCR

If a charity has failed to submit accounts on time (within 9 months of their financial year-end) and has not been in correspondence and/or communicated with OSCR; OSCR will be able to notify the charity that they intend to remove them from the charity register.

Refusal of charitable application when there is no clear connection to Scotland

Does your organisation have its principal office in Scotland? Do you occupy premises in Scotland? OSCR now have the power to refuse an application to register a charity where there is no clear connection to Scotland. For all organisations who wish to apply for charitable status, you should be making steps now to ensure that you do not fall foul of these requirements.

In addition to the changes noted above, there will be changes which will have an impact on charities depending on the circumstances, including:

1. There will no longer be a requirement to give 42 days’ notice of changes that require OSCR’s consent, i.e. change to your charity’s purposes, changing your charity’s name and/or dissolution. Currently you require to have made an application at least 42 days before the change is planned with OSCR aiming to give you a decision within 28 days. It is unclear how removal of the 42 days’ notice will work in practice however it seems to suggest that this will make the process more streamlined.
2. OSCR will be able to take action where they feel that the trading name (“known as” name) is misleading, offensive or too similar to another charity’s name. Currently OSCR only has power in relation to the charity’s registered name.
3. When there is a proposed merger of two charities, they can enter both charities on the charity register with the same name. This is a notable change as currently when merging two charities, i.e. where an unincorporated charity is winding up and transferring its assets to a new SCIO, the new charity has to be incorporated with a different name. Only once the unincorporated charity has been wound up, is it able to change the name of the new SCIO back to the original charity name. In the past, this has caused confusion for the charity going through this process and for their trustees, suppliers, and banks. This process should hopefully make things significantly smoother and simpler.

At a later date, further additional amendments will be brought into force in relation to the new Act.   These further amendments include creating a searchable record of those individuals who have been disqualified as charity trustees; updates to the disqualification criteria for charity trustees; a record of charity mergers; a schedule of charity trustees and most significantly a publication of charity trustee names.  We will publish a further blog on the subject of the Charities (Regulation and Administration) Scotland Act 2003 as and when the further amendments come into force.

If you, or anyone in your organisation, requires further advice or assistance in this regard, please contact our team.