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Learning from OSCR’s inquiries

Part of our work as the Scottish Charity Regulator is to carry out inquiries in response to concerns from the public, charity staff and other sources. You can learn more about how OSCR deals with concerns and inquiries here.

Below is a series of reports about the common themes coming from our inquiry cases. In these reports, we discuss the lessons that charities, and those who work with charities, can learn to help improve their governance and avoid potential problems. 

Reports: Learning from OSCR's Inquiries

Financial Management

Our report, Learning from OSCR’s inquiries: Financial Management, details ten key lessons to support good financial governance.

Every charity needs money to deliver its charitable activities, and poor financial management can stop a charity from achieving its purposes – as well as having more serious consequences.

In some of our recent inquiry cases, financial management issues were a significant part of our inquiries. These issues included:

  • Lack of clarity around financial controls and procedures
  • Poor understanding of how financial decisions were made
  • Trustees keeping financial information to themselves
  • Decision making that was not collective

The aim of our report is to highlight why these issues can cause problems, and what charities can do to improve their financial management, in order to promote good governance and ensure trustees are able to meet their legal duties.

Read the report here.

Dominant behaviour in charities

Our second Learning from OSCR's Inquiries report focuses on dominant behaviour in charities.

At OSCR we’re increasingly concerned about dominant behaviour in charities. Dominant behaviour in a charity’s governance happens when one person (or a small group of people) makes all the decisions in a charity and prevents the charity’s trustees, as a whole, from acting collectively and doing their job properly or force the charity trustees to legitimise their decisions at a later date. It can and does result in beneficiaries, staff and funders losing confidence in a charity.

The report discusses:

  • Why dominant behaviour arises in charities
  • Why dominance is a problem
  • How to prevent dominance from happening
  • How you should tackle dominant behaviour
  • Further sources of help and guidance

Read the report here.

To be notified when subsequent reports become available, you can sign up for our newsletter here. You can also keep up-to-date with all of our latest announcements by following us on social media and regularly checking our news page.

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