Coronavirus incidents affecting charities might need to be reported to the Charity Commission, the regulator has told charities.
In a statement made today, the commission said issues arising from Covid-19 might result in circumstances that have a significant impact on charities and therefore should be reported to the regulator.
Examples cited by the commission included if a charity stopped all or a significant part of its work because of coronavirus or if the cancellation of an event had led to a significant loss of expected funds and/or insolvency issues.
The closure of a charity school or a charity being forced to stop significant activities in virus-hit areas such as China could also constitute a serious incident, the commission said.
But the regulator said that if a charity thought it might be affected because of the nature of its work or service users but there had not yet been any impact, it did not need to make a report at this stage.
“For example, a care home that is taking all appropriate measures to protect vulnerable residents and staff but has not had any suspected cases of coronavirus currently would not need to make a report,” the commission’s statement said.
The regulator urged charities to check the most up-to-date advice from Public Health England on the matter.