The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator has today opened a consultation into plans to publish all annual reports on its register, and several other changes to the way it regulates charities.

In the consultation document, entitled Targeted Regulation of Scottish Charities: progressive, preventative and proportionate, the OSCR said it plans to publish the annual report and accounts of all charities with an income of at least £25,000, and of all Scottish charity incorporated organisations.

The regulator said it will encourage charities to file their annual reports and accounts online, and will only send out paper forms on request.

The OSCR also plans to develop a database of trustees of Scottish charities, because at present it only keeps details of principal contacts for many charities.

It plans to develop a serious incident reporting regime, which would require charities to report a number of different types of incident, such as fraud or theft, or allegations of mistreatment of beneficiaries.

“We have engaged in a programme of work that is designed to help ensure that we are focussing on the areas that have the greatest potential to undermine confidence in the sector,” the OSCR said in the introduction to the consultation. “This consultation is about changes that need to be made to the way in which we undertake some of our work.”

The consultation runs for 12 weeks and will close on 24 October 2014.