OSCR publishes its annual report and accounts

Scotland’s charity regulator has had its budget cut.

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has had cash it receives from the Scottish Government cut by four per cent.

Its annual report and accounts – published this week - show that it received £3.6 million from Holyrood in 2021/22, a figure which has now fallen to £3.4m.

The report also showed a continued increase in the number of registered charities in Scotland from 25,412 in 2021-22, compared to 25,230 in 2020-21.

Meanwhile there was a substantial increase in charities submitting late annual returns and accounts compared to pre-pandemic levels.

The number of concerns about charities which OSCR received in 2021-22 increased to 563 from 426 in 2020-21 - for comparison, 620 were received in 2019-20.

OSCR said it didn’t anticipate any job losses among its staff – who are civil servants – as a result of the budget cut.

Chief executive Maureen Mallon said: “Over the past year, recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has required a great deal of agility for all organisations regardless of size and type. OSCR has become more flexible having settled into our updated organisational structure and we have developed more cross-disciplinary approaches to our regulatory work.

“Overall, I am assured that the work undertaken by the OSCR team during this year has built well on previous activities, and positions us to deliver fully on our Business Plan and Corporate Plan for 2020-23.”

Read the annual report and accounts here.