The Scottish charity regulator’s budget has been cut by 4 per cent.
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator’s accounts for the year ending March 2022, published yesterday, show that it received £3.6m from the Scottish government in 2021/22, but the figure for 2022/23 has fallen to £3.4m.
The accounts also show that the majority of the OSCR’s spending goes on staff salaries, which was broadly unchanged compared with the previous year at £2.3m.
Asked if the cut could put jobs at risk, an OSCR spokesperson said its staff, as civil servants, were subject to a Scottish public pay policy against making any compulsory redundancies.
The OSCR’s report says there were 25,412 charities in Scotland last year, about 200 more than the year before, which employed an estimated 200,000 people and had a total income of £13.2bn.
The regulator began 60 inquiries in 2021/22, up from 43 in 2020/21.
The OSCR’s highest-profile open investigation is into The Prince’s Foundation, over allegations that donors used the charity to gain access to Prince Charles and to buy honours. The charity’s chief executive resigned over the claims.
That inquiry opened nearly 12 months ago. An OSCR spokesperson said: “Our inquiry into The Prince’s Foundation is active and ongoing. We are looking at a number of issues and are working with the significant amount of information that we have gathered to date.
“We cannot provide any further information at this stage as this may prejudice our inquiry work. Our inquiry process will take the time required to ensure that the conclusions we reach are balanced, evidence-based and robust.”
The accounts also show that 13.5 per cent of Scottish charities did not file their financial accounts on time, a sharp increase from about 5 per cent before the pandemic.
The report says: “Some charities which had difficulties in meeting the 2020/21 deadline also experienced difficulties in 2021/22, and are now required to make good their filing status.
“In the coming year we plan to resume work on supporting charities to bring their accounts up to date or to wind up the charity if it is no longer operating.”
Maureen Mallon, chief executive of the OSCR, said: “Over the past year, recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has required a great deal of agility for all organisations regardless of size and type.
“OSCR has become more flexible, having settled into our updated organisational structure, and we have developed more cross-disciplinary approaches to our regulatory work.”