Scottish Charity Research Articles

Navigating financial management challenges in the Scottish charity sector: insights and strategic approaches

This paper investigates financial management within Scottish charities, emphasising the challenges faced in external scrutiny, comparative financial information, and accounting practices. It employs a survey and a review by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator to assess impacts on smaller charities, highlighting issues with transparency and compliance. The study advocates for policy interventions and capacity building to improve sector resilience and transparency, thus enhancing effectiveness and sustainability in the voluntary sector.

The dynamics of racism and antiracism in a Scottish charity

This research explored how staff and families using a Scottish trauma-informed charity, striving to enact antiracism, understand and approach race and antiracism in services for families of colour. Thematic analysis was applied to data from ten interviews with six staff participants and four families. Six interlinking themes emerged. Staff identified the charity as a ‘white organisation’ and sought ‘a common frame of reference’ with families, while families expressed overwhelming ‘gratitude’ to staff. ‘Identities were owned and disowned’, with participants using ‘colour-blind’ racial ideologies. Staff ‘located responsibility’ for bridging cultural gaps in families of colour. White staff, while well-intentioned, did not express a fundamental understanding of racism, impeding their ability to enact antiracism. This reflected wider Scottish policy and lay beliefs of being a post-racist society, and challenged organisational attempts to fully embody trauma-informed practice. Challenges and recommendations for researching racism in the third sector are discussed.

‘Once you bond … you want to create social change’: Interpersonal relationships in youth activism

AbstractThis paper calls for greater attention to the interpersonal aspects of youth activism through a sociological and Black feminist exploration of peer relationships within youth political engagement. Drawing on a multi‐method qualitative research, the work foregrounds the perspectives and experiences of Black girls and girls of colour involved in an anti‐racist Scottish youth work charity. I argue that community and friendship ties cultivated participants' activism. Moreover, participants sought to enact social change by undertaking activist educational practices with their peers. This paper demonstrates how studying young people's peer relationships can engender a better understanding of youth activism and support it.

Risk management in Scottish charities: hidden practices and improvement needs in public service partnerships

This study reviews the evolving role and state of risk management in Scottish charities between 2009 and 2018, with a specific focus on charities engaging in public service partnerships. It draws on data from questionnaires, interviews and charity documents. It identifies how risk management activities are organised in the Scottish charity sector in general. It also identifies how charities deal with risk in partnerships. The findings suggest that most risk management activities are implicit and sporadic, with some Scottish charities engaging in more formal practices, although none of the risk management activities extend to partnership working and reporting on risk management practices is also limited.

Joint production of research priorities to improve the lives of those with childhood onset conditions that impair learning: the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership for ‘learning difficulties’

ObjectivesTo engage children and young people with conditions that impair learning, their parents/carers and the health, education, social work and third sector professionals to identify and prioritise research questions for...

Young creativity

For the front covers of the journal's July to December issues in 2018, we ran a collaboration with the Teapot Trust, a Scottish charity that provides a UK-wide programme of art therapy to chronically ill children in hospitals. The organisation's work aims to build resilience and reduce anxiety in young patients by encouraging them to express emotions. They hope to make hospitals less frightening places for children and their families through art.

October 2017–January 2018

In November, the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator issued a joint publication, ‘Reporting of relevant matters of interest to UK charity regulators’, urging auditors and independent examiners to be more proactive about reporting concerns that may arise during their examination of charity accounts. This is in addition to the guidance on matters of material significance that must be reported as a legal duty: the new publication provides examples of the matters that may be reported to the charity regulators if an auditor or independent examiner has any cause for concern. The regulators’ basic message is, ‘If in doubt, report it’.

Let's talk about mouth cancer – the story and the facts

Let's Talk About Mouth Cancer is a Scottish charity set up by a group of healthcare professionals with the aim of improving the prognosis of a patient diagnosed with mouth cancer. This article will present the charity's award winning oral health campaigns and the various methods used to empower patients with skills and knowledge to catch mouth cancer early. The social media platforms used in the campaign and the demographic engaged will be discussed, along with the knowledge of mouth cancer signs, symptoms, risk factors and current practice of self-examination in Scotland. CPD/Clinical Relevance: The incidence of mouth cancer is on the rise in the UK. Dental care professionals in primary and secondary care should be aware of the barriers to early detection, and help to raise awareness of the disease.

Improving Charity Accountability: Lessons From the Scottish Experience

This article examines the relevance and effectiveness of a charity accountability monitoring program in Scotland. The Scottish charity sector is vibrant and growing but the regulatory regime is in flux. Drawing upon a novel panel dataset of 21,322 observations on 5,124 organizations for the period 2007-2013, this study examines charity accountability from the perspective of the regulator and analyzes its attempts to encourage acceptable norms and practices in the sector. The results reveal that a majority of these charities trigger accountability concerns and a minority do so persistently; however, this study finds no link between these concerns and negative organizational outcomes such as public complaints, regulatory intervention, or charity dissolution. The article suggests that Scotland’s regulatory body should collaborate with the charity sector to reconsider the program’s intended impact and priorities, and reflects on alternative indicators of accountability.

Multiple Motives: Selfishness, altruism and reciprocal exchange in a Scottish charity shop

No abstract.

Scottish mouth cancer charity sponsors global forum.

Scottish mouth cancer charity sponsors global forum.

Governance and performance reporting in Scottish charities

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the governance and performance reporting practices of Scottish charities at a time of unprecedented legislative and regulatory reform. Such reforms include the revision of the SORP governing charity reporting and the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act which led to the establishment of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a descriptive examination of the Trustees' Reports (TRs) produced by a sample of Scottish charities; this assessment was facilitated by means of a content analysis of these documents following the introduction of the new regulatory regime. Findings – The findings indicate that the regime change had a significant impact on the provision of performance, governance and accountability-related information in Scottish charities' TRs. Originality/value – The paper provides the first detailed descriptive account of reporting practices across a range of charities in Scotland at a time of unprecedented regulatory change.

Light-Handed Charity Regulation: Its Effect on Reporting Practice in New Zealand

Internationally, there has been a steady increase in the number of countries instigating charity regulation. While the Charity Commission for England and Wales was established by the Charitable Trusts Acts of 1853, since 2005 the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and the Singaporean Charity Council were established almost contemporaneously with New Zealand’s Charities Commission. In other countries (such as Canada and the United States) tax authorities register and monitor charitable activity leading to a perception that charities need regulation if the donating public's trust and confidence is to increase.Public interest theory suggests that regulation increases organisational transparency through reducing information asymmetry, protects (or encourages) a competitive market, leading to a distribution of resources which is in the public interest (Gaffikin, 2005). While these arguments are commonly used to call for regulation in the private (for profit) sphere, nonetheless they may explain the increase in the number of bodies regulating charities internationally.Notwithstanding a need for regulation, the cost of complying with these regimes is often an issue, especially for small and medium-sized charities and therefore regulator tend to take a light-handed approach to small and medium charities' information provision (for example, Hind, 2011; Morgan, 2010a). Responding to the call by Hyndman and McDonnell (2009) for research into charities regulation, its rationale and operation, this paper ascertains the impact of a light-handed enforcement regime on small and medium charities' reporting. In so doing, it analyses the General Purpose Financial Reporting (GPFR) practices of a selection of 300 small and medium-sized charities registered with the New Zealand Charities Commission against the Charities Act requirements and hence the rationale for this regulator. It uses this analysis to predict how the regulator's activities

The World Association for Veterinary Dermatology (WAVD) (Formerly the World Congress of Veterinary Dermatology Association)

The World Association for Veterinary Dermatology (WAVD) (Formerly the World Congress of Veterinary Dermatology Association)

Making community safety work for Scotland

In 2007 the new nationalist Scottish Government delivered its first budget and 3-year spending plans and set out the terms of new relationship with local government. This ‘Concordat’ included a...

Parliamentary Report

The period under review began with a joint statement by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and HM Revenue & Customs clarifying the requirement for definition clauses (defining the meaning of ‘charitable’, ‘charitable purpose’ or ‘charity’) in constitutions of bodies on the Scottish Charity Register that also wish to seek tax relief from HMRC, in order to establish an operational arrangement that would have a minimum impact on Scottish charities. The agreement was based on the premise that there is very little divergence between the concept of what is charitable under the terms of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (asp 10) and what is charitable for the purposes of the Taxes Acts.

News and Notes

News and Notes

The Scottish Charity Test: Do We Really Need It?

The Scottish Charity Test: Do We Really Need It?

The Association for International Cancer Research

The Association for International Cancer Research

Public perceptions of brain tumours in Scotland: the need for access to appropriate information.

The aim of the study was to evaluate knowledge and perceptions of brain tumours in a heterogeneous, highly educated group of adults living in Edinburgh. Two hundred and forty four respondents answered a questionnaire about the causes, effects and treatments of brain tumours. There were misconceptions about several clinical and biological aspects of intracranial tumours although most respondents were aware of the bleak prognosis associated with many neoplasms. These results, from the intellectual elite of Scotland's capital, suggest that access to information about brain tumours should be readily available. Five leaflets, covering various aspects of brain tumours, that are available through the recently established Scottish charity Brain Tumour Action seem well formulated to address areas of concern and misconception.