Good Governance
Welcome to our 'Good Governance' section - providing useful information and support in one place, to help you get things right.
The vast majority of charity trustees are trying their best to do a good job. Where people raise concerns with us about charities, it's usually caused by a lack of awareness and support or a failure in decision making, rather than intentional misconduct.
What do we mean by ‘Good Governance’?
These are the elements that, handled properly, make for good governance in a charity. You can click on each one to read case studies:
We hope you find this useful - if you have any ideas or comments, please feel free to contact us at info@oscr.org.uk.
OSCR key guidance
- Charity Trustee Guidance
- Being a Charity in Scotland guidance
- Meeting the Charity Test
- Charity Trustee Checklist - Checklist for Elected Members
- Checklist for charity trustees - protecting charitable status
- Accounting guidance
- Receipts and Payments Workpack
- Charities and political campaigning
You can find other guidance using our Documentation and Guidance search.
Links to other guidance
While we can’t accept responsibility for the accuracy of third parties’ guidance, these items may be of interest and are generally applicable to Scottish charities.
- Scotland’s Third Sector Governance Forum developed a Scottish Governance Code for the Third Sector. The Code sets out the core principles of good governance for the boards of charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises in Scotland.
- SCVO advice on running your organisation
- Institute of Risk Management – risk management for charities
- Model constitutions from SCVO
- The Scottish Land Commission guidance for charities that own and manage land in Scotland
Do you have a suggestion for other useful guidance? Email us here.
Good Governance Award
This award has been developed to celebrate and promote the role of good organisational governance in the third sector. It is is delivered by Dundee Voluntary Action.
The Good Governance Award is recommended by OSCR as an excellent tool for charities to help them focus on their ongoing development and support their improvement in key areas relating to governance and management.
Useful Tools
- The Scottish Governance Code for the Third Sector
- Trustee Meetings: Agenda template
- Trustee Meetings: Minutes template
- Links to sources of advice and support
- 6 Steps to successful trustee recruitment
- Ready, set, go! Social Media guides
- Free Snapchat for Charities eBook
- Charity Trustee Payment Flowchart
- Consent Flowchart
Find Support
Scotland has a network of support organisations in each local authority area focused on helping charities - Third Sector Interface groups.
You can also find support from a parent or professional body, or find an accountant or charity lawyer through the links below.
- Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
- The Law Society of Scotland
- Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS)
- Early Years Scotland (Scottish Pre-School Play Association)
- Scottish Mediation Network
Inquiry Reports
Where we issue a Direction to a charity, we are required under section 33 of the 2005 Act to publish a report. You may see us refer to these as ‘section 33 reports’ or ‘inquiry reports’. We may also choose to publish an inquiry report where we decide it is in the public interest, or if the case highlights key lessons for the wider sector. Our primary aim is to highlight 'key lessons' so that the wider sector can see what went wrong and how it was addressed.
See our Inquiry Reports here. You can contact us to request copies of earlier reports.