Charities face accounts crackdown
Charity watchdog, the Charity Commission, has launched a campaign to get charities to file their accounts on time after more than a third failed to meet last year's deadline.
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The commission’s ‘Accounts Aren’t Optional’ campaign aims to remind trustees of charities with incomes of more than £10,000 that they must send the commission their books within 10 months of the charity’s financial year end – a date that varies in different organisations, the Guardian reported.
Last year 38% of charities failed to submit their accounts ‘on time or at all, or to provide adequate information on performance’ the Commons public accounts committee reported.
Committee chairman Edward Leigh MP said: ‘It really concerns me that so many charities fail to meet their basic reporting obligations. In doing so they are treating the commission with contempt.’
The commission’s operations director, Simon Gillespie, said: ‘The donating public has every right to know how charities are spending their money, and people are increasingly exercising this right. Failure to send accounts and returns to us on time is breaking the law.’