Charity Commission Registers - more news

Further improvements to the Charity Commission Register “continue to develop” and the Charity Commission expects that they will be released in the Spring - probably around April. Apparently, the new search facilities will expand upon the old "area" search, enabling users to search for charities operating in a specific country (or countries), and in the UK, specific locations. Future improvements could also give users more options to filter their searches.

I have been told that the website team will be asked about email alerts and RSS feeds.

Whilst I agree that it seems wasteful to have two organisations doing much the same kind of work, I suspect that the advanced search functions offered by Guidestar UK are helping to prompt the Charity Commission to continue to improve their site.

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) www.oscr.org.uk offers an advanced search function that is better than that available on the Charity Commission website. There are registers in the pipeline for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Jersey. It will be interesting to see what information they make available, and how much of it is available online. I understand that the proposed register for Jersey will only include fundraising charities, and not private charitable trusts.

By the way, the General Register for the Isle of Man www.gov.im/registries includes a downloadable Index of Registered Charities. It is updated twice a year.