The Charity Commission has removed four charities from its ‘double defaulting’ inquiry, which initially involved 24 charities which had persistently filed financial information late with the regulator.

Now, only eight charities remain as part of the Commission’s on-going inquiry which targets ‘double defaulting charities’ with incomes over £250,000 and over.

The Commission has today announced that four charities have now complied with their reporting obligations and have been removed from its inquiry.

These are Crawley Islamic Centre and Mosque; Michael Davies Charitable Settlement; the Muslim Cultural Society of Birmingham; and Bradford Christian School

Michelle Russell, head of investigations and enforcement, said:  “As the class inquiry into double defaulting charities carries on and reports continue to be published, we can see a number of different excuses featuring from the charities about why their accounts were late.

"None of these excuses relieve the trustees from their legal responsibility to file accounts with the Commission, or their duty to help maintain public trust and confidence in charities.”

Some of the excuses charities gave for not filing accounts were ill heath of staff; absence from the UK; difficult family situations and bad administration.