The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a religious charity after it repeatedly failed to file its annual accounts on time.
Keren Shmuel, a grant-making charity established in 1996 for the advancement of the Jewish religion and religious education, was first scrutinised by the regulator in January 2017 when its annual return and accounts for 2014 and 2015 were still outstanding.
The Commission issued a final warning and deadline to the charity, based in north London, which it missed.
The charity then became part of the regulator’s class inquiry into charities failing to submit their annual accounting documents for two or more financial years.
During the class inquiry, the Commission once again told Keren Shmuel’s trustees to submit the outstanding documents, which they did in March 2017.
However, the trustees then failed to file the charity’s accounts for the 2019 and 2021 calendar years on time. According to the regulator’s website, the charity’s accounts for both years have now been filed, albeit 18 and 109 days late, respectively.
The Commission subsequently opened a statutory inquiry into Keren Shmuel on 4 April, which is examining the trustees’ administration, governance and management of the charity.
It will also scrutinise the trustees’ conduct and financial controls and management of the charity, which had an income of £730,000 in 2021.
“The trustees of Keren Shmuel have demonstrated repeated failure to comply with this duty, which warrants further investigation from the Commission as part of an inquiry,” the regulator said in its announcement.
Civil Society has asked the charity to comment.
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