The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into Community Accountancy Self Help over a repeated pattern of failures in submitting accounting information
The charity has purposes to advance education by providing training and advice in financial management, in particular for charities. It also has general charitable purposes.
The regulator is concerned about the trustees’ failure to submit any accounting information over a number of years. The charity last filed its annual return and accounts for year ended March 2020. The charity was twice previously, in 2018 and 2020, placed under the regulator’s double defaulters inquiry. That inquiry investigates charities that have defaulted twice or more over the past 5 years on submitting required accounting information.
During those previous engagements, the Commission emphasised trustees’ statutory duties, noting that the charity, given its purposes, should be setting a good example to the charities to which it offers services. The regulator encouraged the trustees to make the necessary provisions to ensure all future accounting information were filed on time.
Despite this extensive engagement, the charity is again in default, having failed to file accounts for years ended March 2021, 2022, and 2023. The accounting information for the year ended 2021 is now over a thousand days overdue.
The inquiry will examine the extent to which the trustees are complying with their legal duties in respect of the administration, governance, and management of the Charity and in particular:
The Commission may extend the scope of the inquiry if additional regulatory issues emerge.
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Notes to Editors