On 9 March 2026, the last tranche of provisions in the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023 (“the 2023 Act”) came into force.

The 2023 Act received Royal Assent on 9 August 2023 and was the result of consultations carried out over several years, aimed at strengthening the existing law and bring about greater efficiency and transparency in the way Scottish charities operate and are regulated. The 2023 Act amended the main piece of Scottish charity legislation, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005.

What are the new changes?

From 9 March 2026 on the Scottish Charity Register:

  1. First and last names of charity trustees will be published and will be accessible by the public on the Charity’s Register entry. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) will be monitoring the online system to ensure that submissions of charity trustee names are entered correctly and on time. At present, this is a live exercise, which requires charity trustees to actively input details of their names through the OSCR online portal, or alternatively to send these via email.
  2. Every set of annual accounts submitted as part of a charity’s online annual return will be published in full, unredacted, and will be accessible by the public.

What does it mean for charities?

  • Charity trustees

    Charities must ensure that first and last names of all its charity trustees are either updated on OSCR’s portal or communicated via email. Charities can update their charity trustee information at any time using OSCR Online.

    Whilst only the first and last names of charity trustees will be published on the Register and available publicly, OSCR now collects more detailed charity trustee information. That includes a charity trustee’s:

    • Full name
    • Home address
    • Email address
    • Telephone number
    • Date of birth
    • Date of appointment as charity trustee

    That information will be used by OSCR not only to identify the correct charity trustee where names are identical but also to maintain an accurate record of who is in control of which charity and to take appropriate action should the need arise - such as getting in touch with the relevant charity trustees and/or issuing formal correspondence. It will also help OSCR collate accurate statistics that reflect the demographics of charity trustees in the country, such as age, length of term in office, and information on where most charities are concentrated geographically. This data will be helpful in understanding the make-up of charity Boards across Scotland and what might be done to improve their effective governance, as well as widening access to public participation in the third sector.

  • Annual accounts

    The unredacted publication of annual accounts means that OSCR will no longer review annual accounts that are submitted to it and will publish them exactly as received.

    As a result, when preparing Annual Accounts, it is important to consider the detail and information you include relating to individuals named in your accounts. For example, for privacy reasons, charity trustees may wish to be shown in the accounts by their first and last name to match with the charity trustee register – i.e without any title or pre or post nominals.

Other information that will be published

Over time, the following information will gradually begin to be published on a charity’s entry on the Scottish Charity Register:

  • A description of what the charity is set up to do and how it does this – in the charity’s own words
  • The number of staff
  • The number of charity trustees
  • The number of volunteers

These changes are designed to improve transparency across the charity sector in Scotland.

What changes are already in effect?

As a reminder and in summary, the provisions of the 2023 Act that are already in force include:

  • Extended charity trustee disqualification provisions, which include an expanded set of offences of dishonesty and other serious criminal offences (such as bribing and terrorism) that will automatically disqualify a charity trustee from acting.
  • Expanded OSCR inquiry powers, which now include the power to issue positive directions to charities and the power to carry out inquiries into former charities.
  • OSCR powers to appoint interim charity trustees even in the absence of a request by the charities and the power to remove dormant or no longer existing charities from the Register.
  • A new register of charities mergers, ensuring that any legacies bequeathed to charities that have now wound up/merged are distributed correctly.
  • The requirement that a charity proves a sufficient connection to Scotland.

If you have any questions about the content of this article, or would like more information, please contact one of our charities lawyers.

Contributors

Kenneth Pinkerton

Partner

Diana Stoica

Solicitor