The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into Catholic charity the Order of Friars Minor Conventual.

The charity was set up almost 60 years ago to support the charitable work carried by the order of Franciscan friars, which dates back to the 13th century.

The regulator is to investigate its management after the charity repeatedly failed to file its accounts on time or carry out a review of its finances.

The Commission said it first became involved in the charity after it entered its double defaulters class inquiry when it failed to file financial information for two years.

But this has been escalated to a statutory inquiry over “repeated failure” by the charity “to comply with legal duties”.

Late accounts for the financial years ending December 2020 and 2021 were filed this year. However, accounts for 2022 and last year remain outstanding.

The probe will investigate whether the trustees are meeting their legal duties, regarding the charity’s finances. It will also investigate the trustees’ oversight of the charity’s operation and activities.

According to the charities register the charity has four trustees, the reverends Gerard Hanley and Colin Neil Edwards, who were appointed in August last year, and the reverends Wayne Martin and Rory Doyle who were appointed between 2017 and 2018.

Its latest filed financial accounts, for the year ending December 2021, show its income was £838,900, while its spending was £900,780.

Its spending has outstripped its income every year from 2018 and 2021, although the register shows that for the the year ending December 2017, its income was £3m, while it spent £951,020.

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