Members of the public showing a strong interest in charity accounts, now OSCR publishes them on its website
Thousands of people have been using the internet to keep check of charity accounts.
The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has published figures that show a strong interest in the reports and accounts of Scottish charities.
They show that from April to July 2017, there were 12,455 views of charity accounts published by the regulator on its website. In total, annual reports and accounts from over 4,300 different charities were viewed.
OSCR chief executive David Robb said: “Charities need to be aware of the strong interest in their reports and accounts and they should use their reports as a platform to show their impact.
“Making this information available to the public has been a worthwhile innovation for the regulator - we know how important transparency is in building public trust.
“We hope that charities will continue to support this work by putting their annual reports and accounts on their own website. This will allow them to provide more information about the work they are doing and the positive impact they have in their communities.”
As of August 2017, 9,300 charities have a set of redacted annual reports and accounts on OSCR’s website.
The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 allows anyone to receive a copy of a charity’s annual reports and accounts on request. In April 2016, OSCR started to publish the reports and accounts of all charities with an income of £25,000 or more and all SCIOs. The Regulator felt that publishing these reports and accounts would stimulate higher levels of transparency across the sector.
As of August 2017, 9,300 charities have a set of redacted annual reports and accounts on OSCR’s website.
However, this is not the only way that the public can view charity reports and accounts. Charites also have the option to provide a link to this information on their own website. So far, over 2,000 charities have chosen to put this information on their sites.
