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The Charity Commission has published new guidelines to help charities report their activities and achievements.

Its new publication, leaflet CC59, has been issued in response to a growing recognition within the charity sector of the need to improve the quality of annual reporting in order to provide the public and other stakeholders with a clear appraisal of the work that charities do and what they achieve. Whereas the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities (SORP) provides a framework for annual reporting, the new guidance explores how this framework can be better used to help the reader understand the links between a charity?s objectives, strategies and the activities undertaken to achieve them. The Regulations place simplified requirements on charities with an annual income of £250,000 or less, so the new guidance focuses primarily on charities with an annual income above this threshold.

The Directory of Social Change (DSC), which has been campaigning for more effective reporting by charities, has welcomed the new guidance, but believes that two major issues remain to be addressed. It is still calling for the Charity Commission to require all charities to produce a document or pack under the title of ?Annual Report and Accounts?. Secondly, DSC is pressing the Commission to change the guidance to reflect current practice in publicly funded organisations, rather than company accounting practice.