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We have a a statutory responsibility for monitoring, encouraging and facilitating charities' compliance with the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and to increase public confidence in charities through effective regulation. Read our Monitoring Policy for more information about our monitoring programme.

Charities which are registered with both OSCR in Scotland and the Charity Commission for England & Wales should visit our English and Welsh Charities page for details of the monitoring programme applicable to them.

Routine monitoring

• a Annual Return
• a Supplementary Monitoring Return (for charities with a gross income of £25,000 or more)
• a signed copy of annual accounts.
  
  

These documents must be sent to us within 9 months of the charity's financial year end date.

Meeting our requirements

Charities must pass a two stage validation process:

Level 1 validation: the Annual and Monitoring Return forms are checked to ensure they have been fully completed.  If information is missing, we will re-issue the Return form and ask you to complete the missing sections. If the accounts have not been included we will write to you requesting a copy.  

Level 2 validation: all accounts submitted are checked to ensure that they are full accounts, which include the key components:

• a trustees' annual report
• the signature of one charity trustee on behalf of all the charity trustees
• the Scottish Charity number (SC0xxxxx).

Where any deficiency is noted at this stage, a Qualified Pass (QP) letter will be issued highlighting non-compliance and requiring compliance in subsequent accounting periods.

In 2008, we modified our approach to dealing with accounts submitted to us and, for accounting periods ending 31 March 2008 and later, accounts which do not include a compliant receipts and payments account, statement of balances (R&P) or a Statement of Financial Activities and Balance Sheet (accrued) will fail the validation process.

We introduced a further change in 2010 and for accounting periods ending 31 March 2010 and later, accounts will fail the validation process where they do not include:

• a compliant receipts and payments account, statement of balances (R&P) or a Statement of Financial Activities and Balance Sheet (accrued)
• a compliant external scrutiny report from an Independent Examiner or Auditor as appropriate.

In addition, where a charity has received three consecutive qualified pass letters and a deficiency is identified in the current year at level 2 validation, the accounts will be failed.

The charity must then re-submit a set of revised accounts within 60 days or within 9 months of its financial year end, whichever is later.

Once both validation stages have been successfully concluded, the Annual Return Status entry on the Charity Register will be updated to read: '(year) annual return complete'.

Exception reporting

The information provided on the Supplementary Monitoring Return is assessed against 41 active triggers used for exception reporting.  Any exceptions triggered are considered in line with the accounts submitted to establish whether an explanation is immediately available or whether a detailed explanation is needed from the charity.

Completing the forms

Failing to send in the completed forms

Former charities

When a charity is removed from the Scottish Charity register, they still have responsibilities under charity law to prepare and submit accounts to OSCR for any outstanding charitable assets they hold at the time of removal.  Read our Former Charities page for more information.