ITV has said it is taking legal advice over the way the money from its Text Santa appeal was used by the BeatBullying Group.

BeatBullying was one of the beneficiaries of last year’s Text Santa appeal and received £698,000 earlier this year from the broadcaster. The charity’s accounts for the year-end December 2012 said that receiving the money from ITV would “enable the charity to pay all its creditors and put the charity in a positive cash position”.

The charity’s website and mentoring services have been down since last week and the trustees released a statement on Monday announcing that is in “significant financial difficulty” and will appoint administrators.

ITV confirmed to Civil Society News yesterday that it was taking advice on the use of the donations in light of the news of the charity's precarious financial situation.

Commission "engaged with the trustees"

The Charity Commission has said it is "engaged with the trustees" to assess whether there are any “issues of regulatory concern”.

BeatBullying has told the Commission that it intends to appoint administrators and has filed a serious incident report with the regulator.

A spokewoman for the Commission said: “I can confirm that concerns have been raised with us about the BeatBullying Group…we are currently engaged with the trustees to understand how the charity reached this point, and whether there are any issues of regulatory concern.”

Associated CIC late with accounts

It has also emerged that a community interest company that had been set up to sell the charity’s online chat platform to others, is almost one year late filing its first set of accounts with Companies house.

In 2012 the charity ended the year with a deficit of £302,000 in unrestricted funds and its auditors, Sayer Vincent, emphasised that they had looked very closely at whether the charity could continue as a going concern.