The Charity Commission has opened a new inquiry into Christian charity, Into the Light Ministries.

The charity aims to advance the Christian faith and to relieve sickness and financial hardship and promote and preserve good health through the provision of funds, clothing or other basic essentials.

However, the Commission opened an investigation the charity after a third party raised concerns about its financial controls. Upon reviewing the charity’s bank account records and other accounts previously filed, it found “significant concerns”.

Concerns were highlighted regarding the charity’s accounts, potential conflicts of interest, non-primary purpose trading and public benefit, indicating a possible risk to charitable property.

The accounts submitted for the financial year ending 31 August 2016 were also not compliant with the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP), which sets out how charities must prepare their accounts, the Commission said.

“As a result we took regulatory action under section 76 of the Charities Act to safeguard the charity’s property and funds, and have opened a statutory inquiry to examine the governance, management and administration of the charity.”

The inquiry will establish whether the charity has adequate control systems in place to enable the timely preparation and submission of accounting and returns information; any trading carried out by the charity is compliant with current legislation; and that the trustees are responsibly managing the charity’s resources and financial affairs.

It will also establish whether conflicts of interests and transactions with connected parties have been adequately managed and whether receipt of any payments and benefits to trustees and connected parties have been validly authorised in accordance with the provisions of the charity’s governing document.

“We will also consider to what extent the charity operates for the public benefit, and whether there has been mismanagement and/or misconduct,” the Commission added.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.

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