Charity annual reporting queries to be answered live on Twitter

Frances McCandless, Commission Chief Executive, explained: “Once a charity is registered, it then falls under the annual reporting programme and must submit annual accounts and reports to the Commission.

“In the last financial year*, 3,252 charity annual returns were submitted to the Commission, with filing of those accounts leading to £1.38billion of charity income being accounted for to the general public, through the register.

“In fact, you can go onto the register of charities today and see over 4,700 accounts and reports which have been submitted by Northern Ireland charities so far – a number which is increasing every month.

“Given how important charity transparency is, and with more charities becoming due to submit their accounts and reports, now is the perfect opportunity to tweet us a question about annual reporting,” said Frances.

Annual reporting is a key way for the Commission to regulate charities, to keep the register of charities up to date and, if a charity is not meeting its duties, to step in and take action to set things right.

Under annual reporting, once a charity is registered, it is required to report annually to the Commission commencing with the first whole financial year after registration. Once submitted, the charity’s documents are published on their register of charities entry, supporting charity accountability and transparency.

For many charities, annual reporting to the Commission will be the first time the charity’s accounts and reports will be made available for public scrutiny.

If anyone has a query about annual reporting, they can tweet live on the day or send their question in advance to @CharityCommNI and the Commission will endeavour to answer as many queries as possible during the session.

This will be the regulator’s second live Twitter event, with the session working alongside the Commission’s annual reporting guidance to support understanding of the law in relation to charity accountability.

*The 2017-18 year, which ran from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018.

ENDS

For more information please contact Shirley Kernan, Charity Commission for Northern Ireland Communications Officer, on telephone: 028 3832 0169 or email: [email protected]

Notes to editors

The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland is the independent regulator of charities in Northern Ireland. It was established under the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008

Through the annual reporting programme, registered charities are required to complete and submit an online annual monitoring return form, attaching the charity’s accounts, trustees’ annual report and a report from an independent examiner / auditor, as applicable.

The Commission has published a suite of guidance to support charities in reporting annually to the Commission. This is available in the Annual reporting section of www.charitycommissionni.org.uk