# Draft Scottish Charities Bill published

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/06/02/draft-scottish-charities-bill-published/
- Published: 2004-06-02T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The Scottish Executive has published proposals to overhaul the charity law and the
regulation of charities.

The draft Charities and Trustee Investment Bill covers the Scottish voluntary sector
which includes over 25,000 charities, to which Scots donate about £250 million a
year.

 

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The proposals include greater responsibility for the newly-established Office of
the Scottish Charity Regulator: it will have the power to grant charitable status
and it will also be required to maintain a statutory register of all charities operating
in Scotland.

 

 

<>The draft Bill includes provision for a new definition of charity based on public
benefit.

 

 

It also includes proposals to tighten the regulation of fundraising in Scotland.
For example, it aims to ensure that public collections are monitored more effectively
and that professional fundraising companies are explicit about what proportion of
the money they raise for charities is actually received by the charities.

 

 

The draft Bill follows swiftly upon the publication of a draft Charities Bill for
England and Wales. It also follows last year’s high-profile cases of Breast Cancer
Research (Scotland) and Moonbeams children’s cancer charity which have damaged public
trust in charities.

 

 

Martin Sime, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations(
SCVO), welcomed the draft Bill but added: “We’d like to see a definition of public
benefit in the bill and I think that would help guide the regulator in their decisions.”

 

 

The draft Bill is open for public consultation and responses can be made until 25
August 2004. It will then be returned for to MSPs for debate, probably in 2005.

 

 

The Herald newspaper points out that the draft Bill has been a long time coming.
It was ten years ago in 1994 that SCVO published its booklet “Faith and Hope in 
Charity?” which called for a single modern framework for charity regulation.