The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry to investigate a troubled animal rescue charity after it failed to comply with an official warning previously issued by the regulator.
Set up to relieve the “suffering and distress of sick, abused and/or mistreated animals in Europe by providing homes, care and treatment”, the Dog You Need [dot] Com was warned by the reglator over its repeated failure to file accounts on time.
The warning had instructed the charity to supply all outstanding financial information for 2020, 2021 and 2023, and provide information about what financial controls are in place.
It said that failure to comply with this official warning would amount to misconduct and/or mismanagement.
The regulator subsequently received accounts for the financial year ending March 2020 but these accounts raised several areas of concern.
Its concerns included cash expenses and incomplete record keeping by the charity, which had an annual income of just over £45,000 according to the 2020 accounts.
The charity’s accounts for subsequent years remain over 1,000 days overdue which, according to the regulator, has raised further concerns that this could indicate a significant breach of trust or wider non-compliance with charity law.
Charity co-founder defended lack of accounts filing
The commission appears to have first opened a regulatory compliance case into the charity in 2018 after concerns were reportedly raised over its management. However, the case was closed in October of that year.
On 14 October 2024, the commission opened a full statutory inquiry into the charity, which it announced this week, reporting that trustees had failed to act on an official warning.
In an undated blog post on the Dog You Need’s website, co-founder Peter Singh said that “we have not been able to have our charity accounts done because we simply do not have enough money to pay for an accountant – though with some help we will soon have that, at least, done”.
Although it is unclear when the post was written, to date, the 2020 accounts remain the most recently filed.
Civil Society has asked the charity to comment.
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