Charity rules increase workload for Scottish accountants

2 September 2008

In a poll of accountants involved with the charity sector in Scotland, one in five accountants in practice said their firm has considered withdrawing from the sector.

The survey, carried out by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, found that the new regulatory regime for charities in Scotland introduced by the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act has increased the workload of charity trustees and finance directors, and has also meant increased costs for their professional advisers.

Demand for professional advice has increased, according to 81 per cent of those polled.

Of those, 90 per cent said their firms’ costs had increased as a result, but only six per cent passed on those costs to their clients.

More than half (57 per cent) of the CAs surveyed voiced concerns that charities are still finding the changes to accounting rules hard to implement, and 59 per cent said they were concerned about complying with audit and independent examination requirements.

None the less, the survey also found that 57 per cent believed that the changes had improved standards of governance in the sector and more than half (54 per cent) were involved with a charity that had the right to opt for a less onerous “independent examination” rather than an audit, but chose not to do so.

The poll was carried out amongst more than 200 CAs involved with charity either as professional advisers, employees or volunteers.