Find out about English and Welsh charities
Under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (the
2005 Act), bodies which
represent themselves as charities in
Scotland are required to register with OSCR. This requirement
includes bodies which are established and/or registered as
charities in other legal jurisdictions, such as England and Wales.
The 2005 Act does provide some exceptions where this kind of
body is representing itself as a charity but does not have
substantive activity in Scotland. For further details of
these exceptions please read Seeking
charitable status in Scotland for English and Welsh
charities and our briefing note on cross
border constitutions.
Where the exceptions do not apply, bodies will need to apply for
charitable status in Scotland. Bodies established in England
and Wales can apply to OSCR for cross border charitable status by
completing and returning the application
form and trustee declaration
form. As part of the application process, we would also
encourage English and Welsh charities to read our updated guidance:
Cross border
charity regulation in Scotland.
Bodies established outside Scotland which gain charitable status
here (and their charity trustees) will incur the same obligations
and duties as other charities on the Scottish Charity Register.
From May 2009, OSCR introduced its monitoring programme for
cross border charities and the appropriate return forms will be
issued to charities as the financial year end of the charity
passes. These forms must be returned to OSCR, along with the
charity's accounts within 9 months of the financial year end
date.
Monitoring of Cross Border Charities
In September 2010 we undertook an initial evaluation exercise
which measured the compliance rate by Cross Border charities with
the monitoring regime. Our OSCR
Monitoring of Cross Border Charities report provides full
details of our findings.