Making changes to a charity guidance
Summary
Read our guidance on making changes to your charity, when you need our consent and when you need to tell us about changes.
A summary of when charities need to get OSCR's consent to make changes and when to tell us about changes made.
This guide is split into sections that explain the different steps of the process and is supported by factsheets produced by the stakeholders below who worked with OSCR to shape and inform the guide.
This information will help you with your application to wind up or dissolve your charity. To dissolve a charity means causing the charity to cease to exist.
This information will help you with your application to change the purposes of your charity.
This information will assist with your application to change the name of your charity.
Flowchart outlining when OSCR’s consent is required to make changes to your charity.
This guidance sets out the key points charities and applicants to become a charity need to know about the rules around charity names, including the rules under charity law and company law - which apply to companies and Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs).
Read OSCR's guidance on charity reorganisation schemes under sections 39-43 of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005.The guidance is a practical guide to the charity reorganisation process.
Read the guidance on how to reorganise a restricted fund – a fund only to be used for a specific purpose.
Find out how to apply for consent to reorganise a restricted fund.
Restricted Funds Reorganisation application form*.
* This is an interactive pdf form. Before you put any information on the form you need to 'Save As' onto your device. If you don't do this and open the pdf from your web browser you may not be able to save any of your information.
We recommend you open the file from your device using Adobe Reader, which is free to download. If you are having problems with the pdf, please see the Adobe support website before contacting us.
Please return the completed form and any documentation to info@oscr.org.uk.
This guidance is for people who are advising village hall charities about incorporation as a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) or a company; or making changes to their governing document.
From 1 January 2018 Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs) and Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIOs) will appear in the Registrar’s Index of Company Names, which is maintained by Companies House. Charities that are companies already appear on the index. See our FAQs below for more information.