The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a Lancashire gymnastics club.
The Commission is investigating concerns about payments made to trustees and a potential conflict of interest at Flic-Flac Gymnastics Club in Chorley.
Its inquiry, which opened on 3 September, will also examine whether trustees are complying with their duties such as accounting and reporting responsibilities.
It will also look at their compliance with the charity’s governing document and the extent of any unauthorised trustee personal benefit.
Flic-Flac Gymnastics Club’s latest accounts are overdue by more than 200 days, according to the Commission website, with its financial documents for the previous three years also filed more than 200 days late.
The Commission said the charity is also operating with an insufficient number of trustees, with two currently listed on the regulator’s website along with eight volunteers.
Double defaulter
The gymnastics club, catering to young people under 25 years old, has been under the Commission’s “double defaulter” class inquiry since 25 July 2022.
The double defaulter inquiry targets charities that have failed to submit accounting information by deadlines for two or more years.
Flic-Flac Gymnastics Club did not meet its deadlines over the past four years.
In the charity’s most recently filed accounts, for the year to 31 March 2022, trustee Janet Lavender stated that the charity’s reports were late due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lavender further stated that the club was “financially more secure” than they “could have ever hoped” after the pandemic.
However, she noted that there had been some uncertainty over the property the charity had been renting.
According to the charity’s Facebook account, it had recently raised funds for a competition trip to Paris in October.
Civil Society has asked Flic-Flac Gymnastics Club to comment.
Related Articles
