The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a theatre company over concerns surrounding its governance.
Titchfield Festival Theatre, which operates a theatre in Hampshire and hosts the annual Titchfield Shakespeare Festival, was first contacted by the regulator in May 2024 to assess a complaint about the charity’s activities.
According to the regulator, while engaging with the charity, further concerns came to its attention relating to the charity’s financial information, outstanding accounts and potential unmanaged conflicts of interest.
This led the commission to escalate its engagement with Titchfield Festival Theatre to a statutory inquiry.
The inquiry will examine the trustees’ compliance with their statutory accounting and reporting responsibilities; the financial controls and management of the charity, and the trustees’ decision-making.
This will include looking at trustees’ management of potential conflicts of interest in relation to related party transactions and their management of the charity’s relationships with connected entities.
One set of accounts overdue by almost two years
According to the charity’s most recently filed accounts, for the year ending 30 June 2022, it recorded a total annual income of £3.2m and a total annual expenditure of £2.9m.
Its two most recent sets of accounts for the years ending 20 June 2023 and 30 June 2024 are overdue by 623 and 258 days, respectively.
According to information on the Charity Commission website, three of the charity’s four named trustees are also trustees of another charity, the similarly named Titchfield Festival Theatre Productions, whose two most recent sets of accounts are also overdue by the same number of days.
Although separate charities, both organisations share the same website and email address, as well as the same charitable objects, according to their respective entries on the Charity Commission website.
A Titchfield Festival Theatre spokesperson told Civil Society: “The trustees are fully cooperating with the Charity Commission in its investigation as they have done over the last year.
“In the meanwhile, shows continue to be performed from our theatres and our youth theatres continue to operate as usual despite the difficult financial climate.”
