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Compliance: Charities Regulator Annual Report 2017 – Commentary

Charities Update, June 2018

The Charities Regulator Annual Report 2017 was recently published. It is an essential read for anyone seeking to keep up to date with a sector that is going through significant change through oversight and regulation.

It is expected that the regulator will introduce a new financial reporting regime for charities in the ROI by the end of this year. It is likely that the regime will require audited financial statements for all charities with income in excess of €250,000. The format and content of the financial statements is likely to be along the lines of the existing Statement of Recommended Practice [SORP] for charities which is mandatory for certain UK/NI charities and is adopted voluntarily by the larger charities in the ROI currently.

Some highlights from the report

• Number of Registered Charities:
  
  There were 9,061 registered charities at the end of December 2017 (9,327 at end April, 2018). During 2017, 1,757 organisations gained charitable status and 699 had their details removed from the register of charities, giving a net increase for the year of 1,058.
  
  
• The legal form of the registered charities are categorised in accordance with the Charities Act 2009 as follows:
  
  Incorporated Companies: 4,630 (51.1%);
  
  Unincorporated: Associations 1,495 (16.5%), Board of Management (School) 1,593 (17.6%), Other 664 (7.3%)
  
  Charitable Trust: 679 (7.5%)
  
  
• Income Bands:
  
  2,094 registered charities (23% of all registered charities) declared income in excess of €250,000 in 2017 [Based on 2016 financial statements]. The breakdown is as follows:
  
  

  Charities Income Bands	% of 2094 registered charities with income > €250,000	Number of registered charities
  > 5€m	13%	272
  > 1€m	27%	565
  > €500,000	23%	481
  > €250,000	37%	776
  	100%	2,094

It is notable that of those charities 40% had no employees and a further 45% had less than 20 employees.