Damning report concludes after a six year investigation

A former treasurer at the leading body representing Scotland’s architects misused the group’s funds - faciliated by a lack of governance by the charity's trustees, OSCR has said.

Following an inquiry into its governance, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator found trustees at the Royal Instiute of Architects Scotland (RIAS) had failed in their duty to manage former secretary and treasurer Neil Baxter before he quit six years ago.

Baxter misused its funds and was allowed to handle the incorporation’s assets "unnoticed and unchallenged" for years, according to Scotland’s charity watchdog

The regulator claimed that between 2008 and 2017, a lack of "appropriate supervision" of Baxter had "facilitated the misuse of the charity’s assets" resulting in "clear financial damage and loss, as well as reputational damage, to the charity."

But OSCR added the caveat that there is no evidence this was intentional or that any of the other trustees had personally benefitted from it. Concluding the report OSCR said that it would therefore not be appropriate or proportionate to take action in respect of these issues’.

In the letter OSCR states: “Since November 2017 the charity has engaged with OSCR consistently and openly on the progress of governance improvements that the charity decided with the benefit of appropriate advice were necessary.

"While the details of these have been for the charity’s trustees and members to decide, we have been satisfied throughout the period since then that the general tendency of the changes has been to simplify and modernise the governance of the charity in a way that will address the issues identified in the discussion above, and the charity has engaged appropriately with our views where we offered them.

“In particular, we are encouraged by the direction of travel to a more compact trustee board, with the arrangements in place for oversight of senior staff, and with the intention to appoint a Governance Manager.”

RIAS had faced rebellion from within during Baxter’s tenure after a cohort of 100 architects demanded the structure of RIAS to be overhauled and calling for it to become more transparent, inclusive and accountable over its decision-making.

Baxter left RIAS in November 2017 just days after the group’s demands were made having negotiated a settlement. This was reasonable, according to OSCR, given the "advice and information available" to the charity's trustees at the time.

A police probe into potential financial misuse has also been concluded with no action taken.

RIAS’s chief executive, Tamsie Thomson, told Architectural Journal: "It feels like a big moment. It is closing the book [on a chapter] and we can move forward, knowing that we've done what we needed to do.

"But it was also a long time ago. I'd like to think that, for a lot of our members, they see an organisation that’s transformed, that they engage with differently, that’s supporting them and championing them and doing lots of things that they've asked us to.

"One thing we hope to accomplish with publishing [the letter] in the way we have is to [show] we are being transparent and open with our members."