Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs)

The Scottish Government consultation on SCIOs closed on 26 February.  SCVO coordinated and participated in a number of focus group discussions around the country.  Niall Smith from the policy committee assisted with our event in Inverness and reviewed SCVO’s draft response.  The response is available on our website and was circulated widely in advance of the deadline: http://tinyurl.com/y8c97zs

Our response endorses a ‘SCIO-light’ model, based on existing charity law with a minimum of additional requirements necessary to encourage confidence in the new form. The Scottish Government plans to report back on the consultation and begin drafting regulations before the summer recess.  The regulations would be consulted in the autumn with a view to getting parliamentary approval and a start date of April 2011.

Future of charity appeals against OSCR decisions in light of dismantling of the Scottish Charity Appeals Panel

This consultation is ongoing with a deadline of 5 April 2010.  There are 5 proposals for alternatives to the Appeals Panel that are summarised here along with our initial thoughts in response to each one.  We do know the sector feels strongly about preserving an accessible right of appeal and would welcome input on this.

Option 1 – Replace with appeal to court of session – too expensive – creates significant barrier to justice;

Option 2 – Replace with appeal to sheriff court – access issues and lack of specialised knowledge necessary to develop case law;

Option 3 – Replace with separate structure within OSCR – too many potential conflicts of interest;

Option 4 – Merge with another tribunal body – danger of losing expertise on charity law; is there another tribunal that is suitable?

Option 5 – consider as part of ongoing tribunals review – delays; loss of expertise.

Scottish Government Minor Amendments

Some of the recommendations for changes to the Act have been taken forward via amendments to the Public Services Reform Bill, laid by Fergus Ewing on 24 February, much to our surprise as the report on the consultation was not published until the following day: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/businessBulletin/bb-10/bb-02-24g.htm

The changes to the Act that have found their way into the Public Services Reform Bill include:

1. requiring charities to indicate their charitable status and registration number on their websites;
2. giving OSCR new powers to vary, revoke or review directions they give under regulation ‘s30’ (charities who risk removal from the register) – previously, they could give directions but had no flexibility to change them if the circumstances changed
3. allow OSCR to disqualify ex-charity trustees – without this change, they were technically unable to disqualify a ‘bad’ charity trustee if that person was no longer concerned in the management or control of the charity in question;
4. allow OSCR more flexibility to approve changes adding new unrelated provisions to a charity’s constitution – so long as it is consistent with the spirit of the constitution;
5. inserting a new ‘chapter 5A’ (the reorganisation chapter) allows OSCR to approve reorganisation of restricted funds in limited conditions.
6. allow OSCR to appoint additional charity trustees, at the request of the charity and for limited time only, 1 year plus 3 months, where a charity has insufficient number of charity trustees to be able to appoint a charity trustee under its constitution, and the constitution has no mechanism for dealing with the circumstances. The trustee would have same functions as other trustees and be bound by duty to act in best interests of the charity.
7. changes to allow trustee indemnity insurance – note that this was unilaterally decided by Scottish Government and was not included in the consultation

The consultation also proposed changes to the charity accounting regulations.  Some of the proposed changes will be taken forward, but not in the Public Services Reform Bill.

They include increasing the threshold for accrued accounts, from £100,000 to £250,000 in line with recent changes in England and Wales.  This will take effect for financial periods starting on or after 1^st April 2011.  A number of other minor amendments have also been agreed.

There was also a proposed new requirement for charities to detail how they are providing public benefit, which we vigorously opposed.  The Scottish Government has decided not to pursue this through regulation at this stage, preferring to achieve it through best practice/education route and will discuss with OSCR how to do this.

OSCR Integrated Reporting Consultation

This consultation sets out a number of proposals for streamlining and updating OSCR reporting requirements and systems. The headline items are:

1. Introducing optional online reporting
2. Streamlining the annual return form
3. Introducing financial highlights but not publishing full accounts online.

OSCR has not indicated how or when it will begin to implement these changes.

Policy Committee is asked to note this update and provide comments on the options outlined for the Future of Charities Appeals.

Martin Sime                                                                                                              Nancy Fancott

Chief Executive                                                                                                      Policy Officer

Tags: policy committee, Scottish charitable incorporated organisation

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at 3:10 pm and is filed under policy committee documents march 2010.