Youth homelessness support charity the Bridge is the latest organisation to be dropped from the Charity Commission’s class inquiry into large charities which have not filed financial information. 

The Charity Commission had originally opened an inquiry into 12 organisations, where the most recent financial information available identified them as having incomes over £500,000.

This dropped to eight last week, when four charities filed their outstanding annual returns, reports and accounts.

Now, the Bridge, which provides temporary emergency accommodation to young homeless people, has been taken out of the scope of the inquiry, after submitting its accounts on 7 October for the years ending 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

These show that the charity’s income has fallen dramatically since 2009, from £947,699 in that year to £255 for the year ending 2012.

The slimming down of the Charity Commission's inquiry means that six of the seven still under investigation are faith-based organisations.

The regulator opened the class inquiry last month in a bid to spur large charities with a history of late filing, into getting their documents up-to-date. It has focused initially on charities with incomes of more than £500,000 which have not filed financial information with the regulator for two years or more out of the last five, but has warned it will expand its net to include smaller charities at a later date.