OSCR has Extended the Grace Period for Filing Scottish Charity Accounts

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has announced an extension of the “grace period” for submitting Scottish charity accounts.  This was put in place earlier this year in recognition of the difficulties in preparing annual accounts which many charities have encountered due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  The OSCR update can be found here:  –

https://www.oscr.org.uk/news/submission-of-reports-and-accounts-an-update/

The grace period has now been extended from 6 months to 9 months.  This is applicable in all cases where the deadline for filing accounts and annual returns falls after 1 March 2020.  The filing deadlines, which are set in law at 9 months after the end of the financial year, have not changed – the effect of the grace period is that OSCR will not take action during this period if accounts or returns are filed late.

As an example, if a charity’s accounts are made up for the year ended 31 December 2019, the filing deadline was 9 months after the year-end deadline: that is 30 September 2020.  Although this date has already passed, OSCR will take no action for a further 9 months, which takes us up to 30 June 2021.

There are currently no financial penalties imposed by OSCR for late filing and this remains the case.  Failure to file in accordance with the deadline results in the relevant section of the charity’s entry in OSCR’s online register being highlighted in red to show that the charity has defaulted on its legal obligations.  The effect of the grace period is that the red default marker will not now be applied, provided that the accounts and return are submitted within 18 months of the financial year end.

OSCR has stated that the grace period will remain in place until at least 31 December 2020, at which point it will be reviewed.

It is important to note that this extension applies only to the filing of accounts with OSCR.  If a charity is also required to file accounts at Companies House, for example, because it has been set up as a company limited by guarantee, it must also comply with the separate Companies House deadline.  The Covid-19 extension to the Companies House deadline is 3 months on top of the usual 9 months (for a private company).  So, taking the above example, if a charity is a company limited by guarantee with a year end of 31 December 2019, the OSCR grace period will run to 30 June 2021 but the deadline for filing at Companies House will be 12 months from the financial year end: that is 31 December 2020.