The Charity Commission is investigating an accounting and financial management advice charity for repeated failures to file its accounts on time.

Its probe into Community Accountancy Self Help found that it last filed its annual return and accounts for the year ending March 2020.

This means that accounts for the year ending March 2021 are 1,079 days late as of this week.

The regulator is also awaiting accounts from the charity for the year’s ending March 2022 and 2023.

According to the regulator the charity was set up to “advance education by providing training and advice in financial management, in particular for charities”.

But in 2018 and 2020 it was placed under the regulator’s double defaulters’ inquiry, for failing to submit information on time twice or more within five years.

The regulator has now escalated its probe to a statutory inquiry due to “a repeated pattern of failures in submitting accounting information”.

This will look at the trustees running of the charity and preparation and filing of its accounts and annual returns and investigate whether there has been any misconduct and/or mismanagement.

Its last submitted accounts show its total income in the year ending March 2020 was £101,372, around half of which was from three government grants, while its spending was £116,859.

It has two trustees listed on the charity register, Pepe Francis and Eddy Newman, who do not have any other trusteeships on record.

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