New charity law in Scotland

The names of any individuals disqualified as trustees by the Court of Session are held on a searchable public record. This was launched on 1st October 2024 and can be found here:

OSCR Record of Removed Persons

Currently, people are automatically disqualified from being a charity trustee if they:

• have an unspent conviction for an offence involving dishonesty or an offence under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005
• are an undischarged bankrupt or have a Protected Trust Deed
• have been removed under either Scottish or English Law or the courts from being a charity trustee. 

This list of offences for automatic disqualification will be extended, to include offences such as bribery, acts of terrorism, money laundering and perjury, and anyone on the sexual offences register.

In addition these criteria for disqualification, which have previously only applied to trustees, will be extended to include staff or volunteers who undertake a senior management function for a charity. 

Individuals will be responsible for checking whether they meet any of the criteria that will result in automatic disqualification.

OSCR has the power to waive automatic disqualification in only very specific circumstances.

You should determine who is undertaking a senior management function in your charity. Then confirm with those individuals, and your trustees, that they don't meet any of the criteria for automatic disqualification.

SCVO have a template Trustees Consent Form and Declaration to help with this.

The new rules around automatic disqualification will apply from 31 August 2025.

Charities on the Scottish Charity Register must be able to demonstrate a connection to Scotland when conducting their activities.

OSCR will not register a charity that has no connection with Scotland (or only a negligible connection). To decide on this they will look at factors including whether the organisation has a principal office in Scotland, occupies premises, or carries out activities here.

This power came into effect on 1 April 2024.

OSCR already had the power to appoint interim trustees at the request of the charity, they can now appoint interim trustees when it is not requested by the charity.

This power came into effect on 1 April 2024.

OSCR now have the power to conduct inquiries into former charities and their trustees. Before the change OSCR could only conduct inquiries into existing charities. This means that if concerns are raised about charities that no longer exist (or bodies that still exist, but are no longer charities), OSCR can now investigate.

OSCR can now tell a charity that they have to do something (a positive direction) following an inquiry. Before the change OSCR could only direct a charity not to something (a negative direction).

This power came into effect on 1 April 2024.

OSCR will publish the first and last name of all charity trustees on the Scottish Charity Register. from early 2026.

Individual trustees will be able to apply to OSCR for their name to be withheld from the Register. This might be necessary to protect the safety or security of particular individuals or property. OSCR will provide more details on how this application process will work when data collection begins.

OSCR will collect and hold details of all trustees on an internal database. This will include name, address and contact information, date of birth, and date of appointment as trustee. This is for internal use by OSCR only and will not be included on the public Register.

From 30 June 2025 OSCR will require charities to submit information about their trustees to be held on an internal database through OSCR online.

The annual accounts from every Scottish charity will be published on the Scottish Charity Register, which is publicly available.

All charities are currently required to submit accounts to OSCR each year but OSCR only publishes the accounts for charities with annual income of over £25,000 or those which are Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs). This will change so that accounts will be available for all charities. These documents will be published in exactly the same format as they have been sent. OSCR will not delete any personal information from these documents prior to publication.

This is likely to come into effect in early 2026.

OSCR has kept a record of charity mergers from 30 June 2024, this should help ensure the new charity will be entitled to any legacies bequeathed to charity that has merged with it.

This was published on 30 June 2025.

There are lots of small amendments to some of the wording in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 that will have very little effect on any charities at all. Instead of listing all of these we’ve highlighted the main ones below which are likely to cause a change to the way Scottish charities operate. You can read the full list of amendments on the Scottish Parliament website.

• Clarifying OSCR's powers to remove charities from the Register where it has information that the charity no longer exists.
• OSCR's powers over the use and appropriateness of "working names" for charities, where these are different from the name on the Scottish Charity Register.
• Charities must provide copies of constitutions and/or accounts within 28 days (there is currently no specified time period in the legislation).
• A statutory requirement for charities to complete annual returns and submit these to OSCR. If charities do not submit annual returns, and do not contact OSCR to explain any circumstances, then OSCR will have the power to remove them from the charity register.
• Clarifying the scope of "connected persons" in the context of remuneration of trustees. The changes broaden the definitions to prevent some situations where more than half of trustees might be benefitting indirectly from a charity.