Your help has been absolutely splendid and is greatly appreciated by myself and everyone in the team

Michael Sampson, STM Fiduciaire Ltd

Updated Charity Commission guidance

In June 2010, five pieces of updated guidance were published. All of the Charity Commission guidance is well written and we commend the improvements to the layout, which contains clear, short summaries of the topics with more detailed guidance on each of them. Thus it is easy to scan the document for points which are relevant to your situation.

Guidance	Brief comment
CC8 – Internal Financial controls	See below*.
CC12 – Financial Difficulties & Insolvency	Largely unchanged in content from the previous guidance.
CC19 – Charities & Reserves	Largely unchanged in content from the previous guidance plus suggestions on questions/factors to consider.
CC26 – Charities and Risk management	See below*.
CC20 – Charities and Fundraising	This reflects implementation of the Charities Act 2006 as well as the guidance of the sector’s regulator, the FRSB, membership of which is optional.

* In our view, it is crucial to integrate governance with risk and control. To read a more detailed article on CC8 and CC26 click here

“Reporting Serious Incidents – guidance for trustees” has also been published. The key changes include:

Clarity on why trustees need to report actual or suspected harm of beneficiaries, both to the Charity Commission and other agencies;
More proportionality, in that the trustees can exercise their discretion about reporting low value fraud and theft; and
A requirement for trustees to act responsibly and appropriately and to take reasonable steps for prevention and adopt suitable risk management.

Governance

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