Charities Act 1994 · 2020 Revised Edition · Part 5 · Charity Accounts, Reports and Returns
15. Public inspection of annual reports, etc.
Feedback & supportLast amended by an amending law of 2018. 2 amendments in all.
Any annual report or other document kept by the Commissioner pursuant to section 14(5) must be open to public inspection at all reasonable times —
document
“document” includes information recorded in any form, and, in relation to information recorded otherwise than in legible form —(a)any reference to its production is to be construed as a reference to the furnishing of a copy of it in legible form; and(b)any reference to the furnishing of a copy of, or extract from, it is to be accordingly construed as a reference to the furnishing of a copy of, or extract from, it in legible form;
during the period for which it is so kept; or
if the Commissioner so determines, during a shorter period that he or she may specify.
Where any interested person —
requests the governing board members of a charity in writing to provide the interested person with a copy of the charity’s most recent accounts; and
pays the governing board members such reasonable fee (if any) as they may require in respect of the costs of complying with the request,those governing board members must comply with the request within the period of 2 months beginning with the date on which the request is made.
In subsection (2), the reference to a charity’s most recent accounts is —
charity
“charity” means any institution, corporate or not, which is established for charitable purposes and is subject to the control of the General Division of the High Court in exercise of the jurisdiction of the General Division of the High Court with respect to charities;
a reference to the financial statements or account and statement prepared pursuant to section 12(1) in respect of the last financial year of the charity the accounts for which have been audited or examined under section 13; and
in the case of a charity which is a company, a reference to the annual accounts of the company most recently audited under Part 6 of the Companies Act 1967.[17