Find out about reorganising your charity.
Charity
reorganisation is a valuable tool available to charities
established in Scotland for releasing unused charitable funds back
into Scotland's charity sector. It also allows charities that do
not have the power to make changes to apply to OSCR for authority
to do so.
Charity reorganisation schemes
There are three types of charity reorganisation scheme:
- A variation of the terms of the charity's constitution (whether
or not in relation to its purposes).
- A transfer of the charity's property (after satisfaction of
liabilities) to another charity (whether or not involving a change
to the purposes of the other charity).
- An amalgamation of the charity with another charity.
Applications to reorganise take an average of six months to
complete. Please allow for this when preparing your
application.
Charities currently reorganising
You can search the Scottish Charity Register for reorganising
charities. To view the list of reorganising charities
please select the Reorganising
Charities Only tick box (from the Scottish
Charity Register search) and then Search.
You can view the Scottish Charity Register and begin your search
for reorganising charities here.
Who can apply?
Charity trustees of charities registered in Scotland and
established under Scots law can apply to OSCR to have a charity
reorganisation scheme approved.
Exceptions
Some categories of charity are excluded from the process. This
includes some (but not all) charities whose constitution is an Act
of Parliament, a Royal Warrant or an Order of the Privy Council (a
'statutory enactment').
Where such a charity's property is an endowment (broadly, any
property which has been dedicated for charitable purposes, and held
subject to conditions), and where the reorganisation applies to
this endowment, OSCR will be able to authorise the reorganisation
of the endowment in terms of the 2005 Act.
If your charity is constituted by a statutory enactment and you
are unclear about the appropriate steps to take, please contact us
to discuss your application.
Publication
To inform the public of what is proposed, an application summary
must be published on the OSCR website for a period not exceeding 42
days. Charities with an income of £250,000 (or more) must advertise
in a local or national newspaper too.
Objections
Read our
How to Object page to find out how you can object to a charity
reorganisation.
OSCR decision and next steps
OSCR must approve or refuse a charity reorganisation scheme. If
OSCR approves a scheme, the charity's trustees are responsible for
the reorganisation of the charity and must notify OSCR when the
charity's reorganisation is complete.
If OSCR refuses a scheme, the charity's trustees can ask for
this decision to be reviewed by someone not involved in the
original decision.
If dissatisfied with the outcome of this internal review, the
charity can appeal to the Scottish Charity Appeals
Panel (SCAP), and ultimately to the Court of Session.
Key documents
Charities wishing to apply for charity reorganisation in
Scotland should refer to the following:
Hard copies of these documents are available on request.