OSCR, the Scottish charity regulator, has updated its risk framework and the number of risk areas from ten to six to “better reflect the underlying issues”.
In a statement on its website this week it said the regulator aimed to take a “targeted” approach to “focusm our energy and resourceso n the issues and charities that are mostlikely to undermine public trust and confidence”.
It said that framework would not be “static” as risks “continue to evolve”.
The six risk areas are:
- Deliberate mismanagement of charities
- Criminal activity
- Charity trustees' lack of knowledge
- Attempts to gain charitable status for private benefit
- Lack of clarity of the charity brand - bodies at the margins of charitable status and/or with complex or novel structures
- Charities that don't provide public benefit
OSCR has removed “continual non-submitting charities” and “charities carrying actions without seeking appropriate consent” because they are “symptomatic” of other risks.
It has removed “a body or individual misrepresenting itself as a charity” and people “acting as trustees while disqualified” because these are considered “wilful misconduct”.
“Charities operating in fragile states” has also been removed from the risk register because OSCR is “interested in the criminal end of the spectrum, and this is where the real risk lies”.
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