The Charity Commission has launched a statutory inquiry into Leicester based charity Gifting Humanity after it failed to act on a legal order to improve its administration.

The charity, which helps homeless people and victims of disasters, had already been under investigation as part of the regulator’s double defaulters class inquiry, after it failed to file its accounts for five consecutive years.

It was issued with a legal order by the regulator in December 2023 to improve its accountancy and file all outstanding financial information.

But “the trustees failed to comply with the order and the financial information remains outstanding” says the Charity Commission.

“This amounts to misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity.”

Another concern is that the charity is currently operating with “an insufficient number of trustees”.

The statutory inquiry will look at whether the trustees are complying with their legal duties in running the charity.

This will specifically be investigating their role in preparing and filing the charity’s accounts and how far they have complied with previous regulatory guidance.

The lack of trustees and other failings in its administration will also be looked at.

According to the charities register, its accounts for the financial year ending April 2019 are now more than 1,700 days late.

Its income in the year ending April 2018 was £247,100 and it spent £232,800. This was a tenfold increase in accounts filed for the year ending May 20117, when its income was £27,900 and its expenditure was £22,800.

The register details that is has just three trustees, including a chair. All were appointed between 2016 and 2017 and do not have other trusteeships on record.

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