The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a Christian charity which repeatedly failed to file accounts on time. 

Kingdom Life Ministries has not filed its accounts on time once in the last five years and was been part of the class inquiry into charities that had failed to file accounts for two consecutive years, until July 2016 when it submitted overdue accounts. 

It was three months late filing accounts for the year ending May 2016 and the Commission opened a statutory inquiry in June 2017. 

Kingdom Life Ministries’ most recent set of accounts have been qualified by the auditor, who said: “As part of our audit process we physically verified the existence of fixed assets However, third party documentary evidence to support the cost of these assets was not adequate.”

The charity reported an income of £870,000, mainly from donations and legacies 

It spent almost £92,000 on salaries, including £10,700 in payments to “trustees or connected payments”. 

Separately, as part of volunteer costs, it spent £82,000 on “honorarium”. This is usually a small amount of money paid to someone when no official charge is made, such as payment to visiting lecturers at universities. 

The Commission said: “Despite receiving regulatory advice and being repeatedly reminded to meet their legal duties, the trustees again failed to file the statutory accounting information for financial year ending 2016 on time. 
 
“The trustees have persistently failed to file their accounting documents on time for three consecutive years, and have shown repeated evidence of mismanagement in the administration of the charity and non-compliance with the Commission. Having been provided with regulatory advice and guidance, it is of serious regulatory concern to the Commission that the charity has continued to default on its statutory duties.”