The chief executive of the Scottish Charity Regulator, OSCR, has called on the Scottish Parliament to consider giving his organisation more powers, similar to those that have just been given to the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
David Robb, chief executive of OSCR, was speaking at NCVO’s All Party Parliamentary Group on Charities and Volunteering last week, where he described the legislation in Scotland as “starting to look at bit long in the tooth”.
The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 established OSCR and its powers along the similar lines the English and Welsh regulator and Robb said it was now time to look at ways to improve it.
He said: “One area where I am envious of England and Wales is that they successfully modernised some of their legislation.”
Robb explained that current data protection rules combined with the fact that, unlike in the Commission in England and Wales, OCSR does not have a legal duty to publish accounts meant there was an unintentional “restriction” around improving the “transparency around annual reporting and accounts”.
He said there were other areas where he would like to “modernise” Scottish regulation.
“I would like the opportunity to catch up with England and Wales in some other areas such as enforcement and fundraising,” he added.
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