OSCR, the Scottish charity regulator, will produce guidance on fundraising for trustees, it revealed in its recently published annual report.
For the next year, OSCR said it would “produce new guidance about Scottish charities and trading” and further guidance “making a clearer relationship between trustee duties and fundraising duties”.
Fundraising in Scotland is not regulated by the Fundraising Regulator but is overseen by the Scottish Fundraising Standards Panel, which launched its website in June.
OSCR also said it would also be expanding its “web based services” starting with the introduction of an online application process.
In the foreword to the review David Robb, chief executive of OSCR and Graham Forbes, its chair, wrote: “Going forward, we will keep encouraging charities to be more transparent and open about their activities, stressing the positive impact this can have on public confidence and the reputation for charities and the wider sector.
“We will also continue to make the information we collect about charities more accessible for the same reasons.”
Fewer applications
The review showed that in the last 12 months, a further 854 new charities have registered with OSCR, down from 918 the previous year. It received a total of 1,150 applications for charitable status, a figure also down from the previous year.
As a result, OSCR said it now regulates 24,064 charities in Scotland, up from 24,053 the previous year. It had an average of 46.7 staff during the last financial year, with each staff member effectively regulating £244m worth of charitable income per person.
The latest annual review of OSCR, the Scottish charity regulator, shows that its overall spending for the last financial year fell by over £100,000.
In the year to 31 March 2017, OSCR spent a total of £2.86m down from over £2.9m in 2015/16, according to its latest annual review figures published this week. Of that total spend, over £2m went towards staff costs, while £572,000 went on its running costs.
OSCR was awarded a total budget of £2.96m for the last financial year by the Scottish government. A spokesman for the regulator said that any monies left over at the end of the year would be returned to the government.
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