Useless documents on the Charity Commission website

Finbar Cullen | 11 June 2010 | Blogs

• Tagged with:
• Charity Commission
• funding
• Giving/Philanthropy
• GuideStar
• Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
• Prospect research

I was researching The Gosling Foundation recently, and went to the Charity Commission website for a copy of their latest accounts. Unfortunately, when I tried to read the accounts for 2009, I got the following message: The file is damaged and could not be repaired. Guidestar UK only has the accounts for 2008.

When I raised this with the Charity Commission, I was told that the Foundation had submitted these accounts via the Online Service, and therefore the Charity Commission does not hold a paper copy. It is a shame that they do not check before uploading . However, someone at the Charity Commission has now contacted the charity and asked them to submit another set.

The Gosling Foundation is a limited company, so I obtained a copy from Companies House online (for £1).

If OSCR – the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator doesn’t have the funds to make accounts available online, could they run a scheme similar to Companies House online, and charge a small fee for these documents? It would make researching Scottish charities easier, and cheaper than it currently is.

Finbar Cullen

ResearchPlus

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About Finbar Cullen
Finbar Cullen established ResearchPlus in 2005 to provide fundraising research services for the not-for-profit sector. He researches people, companies and grant-making trusts and foundations, mostly in the UK, but also other parts of the world. Finbar has published directories of “unpublished” grant-making trusts (registered with the Charity Commission and with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator), and each month he contributes to The Trust List, highlighting newly registered grant-making trusts worthy of particularly close attention.