UK Stewardship Code updated
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has responded to the criticisms of the UK Stewardship Code levelled by Sir John Kingman. The revised Code incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors for the first time, encouraging signatories to take material ESG issues, including climate change, into account when fulfilling their stewardship responsibilities.
Deterioration in quality of charity accounts
The Charity Commission has reported a continued deterioration in the quality of charity accounts.
Today every organisation whether commercial, public or third sector collects, manages and processes data. We call this data curation. Data has a lifecycle, from creation and initial storage to the time when it is archived for posterity or becomes obsolete and is deleted. In our view an essential part of that curation process is to ensure that the data is being held securely and that data protection laws and regulations are being complied with.
Charities bear the same obligations as any other organisation. Small and medium sized charities are vulnerable as they do not necessarily know the questions to ask or have the resources to address the issues.
We have assisted clients with GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 readiness reviews. These involve making an independent assessment of whether the policies, procedures and processes that a client has in place will, through their design and implementation, ensure that the requirements of relevant laws and regulations are met Any potential compliance gaps are highlighted and an action plan produced.
Our approach to data security is to consider the basics first. Engaging an IT support company first can often mean that the basics are missed and remain missed as they consider matters at a technical level. We look at the technology you have, how you use it and what we would expect of an organisation such as yours. We look at the risks therein before beginning to consider basic matters such as how you manage external threats, internal threats, the rules your staff have to follow. Often support companies only look at one aspect of your arrangements - usually the one they are most familiar with - rather than taking a holistic look at your organisation and its needs.
Process reconstruction sounds grandiose; it is really quite straightforward. Its objective is equally simple to improve how an organisation goes about delivering what it does. Business Process Redesign (BPR) is the structured, process-driven approach to improving the performance of an organisation.
Third-sector organisations can benefit greatly from looking at their business processes and ensuring that they are effective. Examples of benefits that can be obtained easily include, but are not limited to:
- Organize processes around the outcome, not the specific task;
- One person owns a whole process, performing or coordinating all of the steps;
- Those closest to the process should perform the process;
- Databases and other technology systems can consolidate resources to cut down on duplication and increase flexibility;
- Integrate corresponding activities, not just their results;
- Built-in controls enable the employees who perform the work to self-manage, so that managers can become supportive rather than directive.
- Information should be collected once and at the source and data redundancies are erased..
The assurance services we provide fall into three broad categories:
- Independent Examination of charity accounts;
- Internal audit in regulated entities; and
- Rearrangements, restructures and due diligence.
Independent examination |
Internal audit |
Due diligence |
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All charities must have their accounts scrutinised by someone independent to ensure that they are prepared in accordance with regulations and the charity is trading in line with its governing document. For readers, it also gives reassurance in the figures and narrative included in the accounts. An independent examination by a qualified examiner is required if:
As a firm of Chartered Accountants with a specialism in charity accounting and registered with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland help you fulfill the legal obligation to have your statutory accounts Independently Examined. |
Team members bring a wealth of experience of undertaking Internal Audit services in Social Housing, Further Education Colleges, Universities, Pensions and Banking. The role of internal audit is to provide independent assurance that an organisation's risk management, governance and internal control processes are operating effectively. Our approach to Internal Audit is straight-forward. Whilst we will ensure that compliance obligations are met and that your internal control environment is secure, we aim to deliver value-added organisational improvement. We aim to help you answer the difficult questions in a practical way that supports continuous improvement. |
Most regulated entities are obliged to obtain regulatory consent before entering into a rearrangement or a restructure. A rearrangement generally involves bringing together two or more entities and a restructure is most often internal. The breadth of skills in the team covering your governance to your people means that we are able to provide a one-stop-shop to provide support for you. We will:
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