The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry over an animal welfare charity’s “continuous failure” too file its accounts.

The last available accounts from the Cat Survival Trust filed with the regulator date back to 2011.

The inquiry has been launched after several attempts by the Commission to submit overdue financial information.

This had included the opening of a regulatory compliance case four years ago, “repeatedly” sending filing reminds and assessing whether the charity is still operating.

Under charity law the trustees have been asked to submit all outstanding accounting information dating back over the last 11 years, but this has not yet been received.

The probe will investigate whether the charity has failed to comply with its statutory reporting duties, whether its trustees have adhered to their legal duties and if there is misconduct or mismanagement in their running of the charity.

We’ve opened an inquiry into The Cat Survival Trust over the charity’s repeated failure to file its annual accounts.

Read more: https://t.co/62NipCVMrJ pic.twitter.com/7BEJf2m2la

— Charity Commission (@ChtyCommission) January 11, 2024

Cat Survival Trust launched in 1976 to raise awareness and carry out research into wild cat conservation. It runs a wildcat sanctuary based in Hertfordshire.

According to its website: “The Cat Survival Trust is based on a twelve-acre site in Hertfordshire, England, where a small band of unpaid staff manage its affairs in an overcrowded office above a shop (which sells mainly animal foodstuffs and accessories) and also care for the cats, maintain the site and buildings and do most of the construction work.”

---