GuideStar UK to assist self-reporting for small charities

Finance | Ian Allsop | 23 Sep 2008

GuideStar UK will continue to capture and display information from all the financial statements it receives from charities regardless of size, despite changes to the reporting thresholds announced earlier this month.

Under the new proposals, the income at which charities will no longer be required to submit their trustees’ annual report (TAR) to the Charity Commission has risen from £10,000 to £25,000, although these charities will still have to prepare accounts. It is estimated that this will affect 23,000 organisations.

However, GuideStar will provide a simple method for charities with an income of less than £25,000 to voluntarily submit accounts electronically through its existing ‘Update my Charity’ facility, where charities will be invited to upload their accounts as a PDF or Word document.

GuideStar will then digitise the information presented in these accounts and display this data with the reports in the same way as all those received from the Charity Commission.

In its recent bulletin, GuideStar contended that the open availability of TARs and financial statements makes a significant contribution to public trust and confidence in charities.

“A level playing field for all charities large or small is a central principle on which GuideStar UK was founded. The Charity Commission’s decision to raise the account filing threshold to £25,000 means that thousands of charities will effectively have no public visibility.”

It said that its move represents a shift from formal regulation to self-reporting for those charities that recognise the value of communicating their activities and finances to all their stakeholders, including funders.

Directory: Charity Commission

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.