Correspondence

Charity Commission News: Issue 61

Published 3 October 2018

Submit your 2018 annual return and final deadline for 2017

The 2018 annual return service is now available. You will need to submit your annual return for 2017 before you can do the return for 2018.

Find out what you need to do to prepare and send your charity’s annual return.

The 2018 annual return will be tailored to your charity and you may be asked new questions. Read our annual return news story to find out more about this and view the new questions before you log in to the service.

The deadline for submitting your 2017 accounts is 31 October 2018, if your charity has a 12-month accounting period (ends in December). Make sure you file early to avoid any last minute rush.

We expect high demands for the service and advise using it outside peak hours (10am to 3pm) to avoid any problems logging in.

Make sure you check the financial information in your annual return

We recently checked the accuracy of the annual return figures for 3 different sizes of charity, each sample having just over 100 organisations in them.

We found that:

• 89% of charities with incomes over £25,000 reported accurate income and expenditure figures in their annual returns, compared with just over 60% for charities below the accounts filing threshold for most charities of £25,000
• just over 80% of charities with incomes over £500,000 reported accurate income and/or expenditure analyses, compared with more than 95% for their balance sheet and charitable funds analyses

Input error (picking the wrong figures out of the accounts) appeared to be the most common reason for inaccurate annual return figures.

To avoid this happening make sure that a person who is familiar with the charity accounts checks the financial information you’ll submit in your annual return.

All the recent charity accounts monitoring reviews are available on our website.

Safeguarding duties for trustees

Safeguarding is a key governance priority for all trustees, not just those working with groups traditionally considered at risk.

You should read the guidance about safeguarding duties for charity trustees.

We advise you to carry out a thorough review of your charity’s safeguarding governance and management arrangements and performance, if you haven’t done in the last 12 months.

It is also important that you contact us about any safeguarding issues, or serious safeguarding incidents, complaints or allegations which have not previously been reported to us.

Find more about what and how to report to the Charity Commission.

Automatic disqualification: do you know the law has changed?

On 1 August 2018 charity automatic disqualification rules changed.

New disqualification reasons for trustees and some charity senior manager positions (chief executives and finance directors - and those in equivalent roles) have been included.

New reasons for disqualification include being in contempt of court, being named under particular anti-terrorism legislation or being on the sex offenders register.

Make sure you read the guidance for charities which includes:

• a handy disqualifying reasons table that you can download
• sample declarations for current senior managers and trustees to state that they are not disqualified from acting in these positions

Ask your trustees and senior managers (at chief executive or finance director level) to confirm that they are not disqualified. If someone is disqualified, they need to stop acting in that role but can apply to have their disqualification waived.

If you are setting up a charity, you must also confirm that your trustees are eligible and not disqualified to act in this role by completing the new declaration form.

Be aware of charity fraud risks

In August we issued an alert to the charity sector warning of the risks of insider fraud and cyber-crime. Insider fraud is committed by someone involved within your charity, whether a trustee, an employee or volunteer.

According to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau over 50% of organisations have suffered an insider threat attack in the last year and 90% of businesses feel vulnerable to a cyber-attack from within their organisation.

Charities are just as vulnerable to insider threats as the private or public sectors.

Additional good practice in tackling both insider fraud and cyber-enabled fraud will be published as part of national charity fraud awareness week starting on Monday 22 October 2018.

Trust and confidence in the charity sector

Our latest research about trust in charities found that being true to values, transparency and having the ability to demonstrate efficiency and impact are among the most important factors to promote trustworthiness in charities.

These findings show that organisational ethos and values matter to the public, and that rebuilding trust depends on behaviour change, not just on better communication.

You can find out more about public views in the trust in charities 2018 research report.

Keeping in touch with us

Our contact centre is open 10am to 12noon and 1pm to 3pm, Monday to Friday on 0300 066 9197. We can help if you are experiencing technical problems with a service, a registration application or any of our online forms.

You can also sign up for GOV.UK email alerts. This is the simplest way to keep up-to-date with the latest information we publish on our website. You’ll be asked for an email address to create a subscription, and can choose how often you’d like to receive email alerts.

It’s also useful to follow us through our social media channels Twitter and LinkedIn. We regularly share important information and updates for the charity sector through social media.