Posted Monday 31 March 2008
New regulations governing how charities must refer to themselves on certain documents take full effect from 1st April 2008, announces the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
The Charities References in Documents (Scotland) Regulations 2007 as amended by the Charities References in Documents (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2008, specify those documents where charities must declare their registered name, their charitable status and charity number, and the wording that must be used.
The Regulations will allow the public to more easily recognise where an organisation has charitable status.
For new charities entered in the Scottish Charity Register on or after 1st October 2007, the Regulations will come into effect six months after their entry in the Register. The Regulations apply to all charities entered in the Scottish Charity Register, including those charities that are also registered as charities in another country or territory.
From 1st April 2008, items such as business letters and emails, advertisements, invoices, fundraising leaflets, campaign material, must state the following:
- The charity’s name as it appears in the Scottish Charity Register;
- Any other name by which the charity is known;
- The Scottish Charity Number of the charity.
In addition, a charity whose name does not contain the word ‘charity’ or ‘charitable’ must also state the fact that it is a charity. Only charities entered in the Scottish Charity Register which are established under the law of Scotland, or which are managed wholly or mainly from Scotland, are permitted to use the descriptions ‘Scottish charity’ or ‘registered Scottish charity’.
The Regulations were published by the Scottish Government in April 2007 but were scheduled to become compulsory from 1st April 2008 to allow sufficient time for charities’ existing stocks of printed material to be used up. The Regulations have since been amended to specifically exclude cheques from the new requirements.
OSCR has amended its guidance to incorporate the latest change and the new revised version can be viewed here.
If a charity has a surplus of printed material that is currently not compliant, OSCR has confirmed that it will be acceptable to amend such material by hand, using stickers or other means so that the required information is included.
• Full OSCR press release with links to relevant documents.
Category: General
