New guidance for Scottish charity trustees has been published today by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), which aims to provide practical information for charity trustees.

Scottish Charity Accounts – a brief guide explains what implications the new SORP may have for charities, and has been timed to coincide with the Scottish Executive’s consultation on the new accounting regulations under the Charities and Investment Trustees Bill (Scotland).

The Guide to Reorganisation of Small Trusts highlights the provisions set out in Section 10 and 11 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and the Public Trust (Reorganisation) (Scotland) (No.2) Regulations 1993. The Scottish charities bill aims to simplify these rules and the Scottish Executive will be consulting on proposals for how to do so later in the year.

Chief executive of OSCR, Jane Ryder, said: “Our recent monitoring pilot indicates the charity accounts booklet will be valuable for small and medium-sized charities, while the trust booklet is a guide to very complex technical requirements, which will help very small and often much older charities to modernise their objectives and operations to suit modern conditions.”