Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator

Independent regulator and registrar of charities in Scotland

Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)
Logo
Type	Non-ministerial office in the Scottish Administration
Founded	2003
Headquarters	2nd Floor, Quadrant House, 9 Riverside Drive, Dundee DD1 4NY
Location	Dundee, Scotland
Area served	Scotland
Services	Determining charitable status; keeping the Scottish Charity Register; monitoring compliance; investigating misconduct
Key people	Quentin Fisher (interim Chief Executive)
Website	oscr.org.uk

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) is the independent regulator and registrar of charities in Scotland. It describes itself as regulating "over 25,000 Scottish charities including community groups, religious charities, schools, universities, grant-giving charities and major care providers", all of which must be registered with it and meet annual reporting requirements. Based in Dundee, it is a non-ministerial office independent of the Scottish Government and reports directly to the Scottish Parliament every year.

OSCR's statutory functions are set out in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. Its counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom are the Charity Commission for England and Wales and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

History and legal basis

The Scottish Government's directory of public bodies gives OSCR's date of establishment as 2003. The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 created "an office to be known as the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator" and a body corporate, the Scottish Charity Regulator, to hold it. A 2006 order made under the Scotland Act 1998 provided that the office is to be regarded as one of the offices in the Scottish Administration which are not ministerial offices. According to OSCR's review of 2006, its new Board was appointed in January 2006 and it took up its regulatory powers in April 2006, when the new Scottish Charity Register was established.

Under section 1(5) of the 2005 Act, OSCR's general functions are to determine whether bodies are charities, to keep a public register of charities, to encourage, facilitate and monitor compliance with the Act, and to identify and investigate apparent misconduct in the administration of charities.

Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023

OSCR announced on 19 February 2026 that, as the final set of changes under the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023, from 9 March 2026 the first and last names of charity trustees would be shown on each charity's register entry, and annual reports and accounts submitted from that date would be published in full without redactions. The register would also show a description of the charity's work in its own words and the numbers of staff, trustees and volunteers. Only trustee names are published; some exemptions may apply.

Scottish Charity Register

OSCR publishes downloadable files of the current register and of former (removed) charities under the Open Government Licence. The current-register file dated 14 October 2026 lists 24,958 charities. The former-charities file downloaded on 22 October 2026 lists 30,736 removed charities. OSCR's field notes for that file explain that a ceased date of 2 June 2012 is used for any charity removed before that point, because no removal date was recorded earlier, and that a reason for removal is recorded only for charities removed from April 2017 onwards. In the 22 October 2026 file, 19,684 records carry the 2 June 2012 default date, and the "Reason For Removal" column is empty for every record; where an explanation is given, it appears in the "Notes" column (for example "This charity has been wound up/dissolved." or removal under section 45A of the 2005 Act for failure to provide accounts).

The register's web pages, rather than the bulk files, are the public source of trustee names: the downloadable files contain no trustee names.

Register entries for selected Jewish and Israel-related charities

The table below summarises OSCR's register entries for Jewish and Israel-related charities in Scotland that have pages here, together with three charities that are also registered in England and Wales. "Trustee names shown" is the number of names on the charity's register page on 21 October 2026.

OSCR register entries (current register, 14 October 2026; trustee names, 21 October 2026)

Charity	OSCR number	Registered	Constitutional form	Regulatory type	Trustee names shown
Glasgow Jewish Community Trust	SC013684	27 February 1964	Trust	standard	8
KKL (Scotland) Charitable Trust	SC037850	20 February 2007	Company	standard	3
Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland	SC050079	17 April 2020	SCIO	standard	none shown
Jewish Council of Scotland	SC029438	30 September 1999	SCIO	standard	8
Eastwood Jewish Community Centres	SC048957	15 January 2019	SCIO	standard	4
Clive Jay Berkley Foundation	SC017216	7 January 1986	Unincorporated association	standard	none shown
Westleague Limited	SC038854	26 October 2007	Company	cross-border	4
Giffnock Newton Mearns Synagogue	SC049806	9 December 2019	SCIO	standard	8
Friends of Lubavitch Scotland	SC031458	2 March 2001	Trust	standard	4
Chabad Lubavitch of Edinburgh Limited	SC045668	3 June 2015	Company	standard	3
Glasgow Maccabi	SC019965	13 June 1967	Unincorporated association	standard	7
Queens Park Charitable Trust	SC033701	12 September 2002	Trust	standard	1
Esterson Trust	SC002824	23 October 1985	Trust	standard	4
Netherlee and Clarkston Charitable Trust	SC042072	8 February 2011	Trust	standard	10
Jewish Care Scotland	SC005267	25 March 1996	Company	standard	10
Cosgrove Care	SC013208	26 April 1960	Company	standard	8
Newark Care	SC009334	25 May 1950	Company	standard	5
Walton Foundation	SC004005	26 May 1965	Trust	standard	3
Glasgow Rabbinical College and Mikveh	SC008431	26 January 1942	Unincorporated association	standard	3
Jewish Student Chaplaincy Scotland	SC005999	5 May 1973	SCIO	standard	7
Britain Palestine Project	SC047090	12 January 2017	SCIO	standard	15
Holocaust Educational Trust	SC042996	6 March 2012	Company	cross-border	10
United Jewish Israel Appeal	SC039181	30 January 2008	Company	cross-border	9

• A register page with no names shows "No charity trustee information available". This can mean an exemption on safety or security grounds, or that the charity has not yet supplied the details; on 21 October 2026 this was the case for the Confederation of Friends of Israel in Scotland and the Clive Jay Berkley Foundation.
• "Cross-border" charities are also registered in another jurisdiction. The Holocaust Educational Trust (SC042996) is Charity Commission charity 1092892 and United Jewish Israel Appeal (SC039181) is charity 1060078 in England and Wales; Westleague Limited (SC038854) is England and Wales charity 292282.

Removals

The former-charities file records two removals in 2026 among the Scottish charities covered here:

• Glasgow Jewish Representative Council (SC047108), a SCIO registered on 23 January 2017, ceased on 6 May 2026 with the note "SCIO dissolved."
• Talteg Limited (SC039019), a company registered on 5 December 2007 with its principal office at 90 Mitchell Street, Glasgow, ceased on 29 May 2026 with the note "The charity has wound up". It was also registered in England and Wales as charity 283253.

See also

• Charity Commission for England and Wales
• Charity Commission for Northern Ireland
• The Gazette
• Companies House

External links

• Search the Scottish Charity Register