A total of 25 charities are currently being examined by charity accountants on a volunteer basis as part of the joint ICAEW and Charity Commission peer review pilot.

The peer review programme was announced at the annual voluntary sector conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales last September.  It aims to match up volunteer ICAEW members with applicant charities to review the charity’s financial and management systems to identify risks.

Anonymised reports will be given to the Charity Commission, who will use these to help inform future guidance.

Nick Brooks (pictured), head of not-for-profit at Kingston Smith and chair of the ICAEW voluntary sector group, said one review had already been completed and the rest were due to be finished by the end of March.

“We will then have a review meeting in April with all the 25 reviews and then I will pull together all the threads and report to the Charity Commission.”

He said he was pleasantly surprised at the level of interest, especially from potential reviewers. “If the Charity Commission decides to do it on a bigger scale I would think there would be quite a big take-up of it.”

He said he expected to deliver his final report from the pilot to the regulator at the end of the summer.