Filing Annual Accounts and the Charity Commission

The Almshouse Association is aware of the technical issues that a number of our members have experienced when trying to file their charity’s Accounts with the Charity Commission and we have, therefore, referred this to the Commission.

We have subsequently been informed that it is possible for charities to request that their Accounts are ‘backdated to show as compliant’ once filed.

If you are experiencing problems in accessing the online service, it is necessary to complete an enquiry form, or alternatively call the Charity Commission’s contact centre on 0300 066 9197 (Mon – Fri, 9 am – 5 pm).  

Click for Charity Commission Enquiry Form

Text from Charity Commission Website regarding filing annual accounts at:
Prepare a charity annual return – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

NOTE: Access to the Charity Commission’s online services has changed. From 31 July 2023 your previous shared charity login details will no longer work.

You need to have set up your own My Charity Commission Account, using an individual email address and password, to access services on behalf of a charity.

If you have already set up your new account, with personal login information, you can sign in to submit your charity’s annual return.

When to submit your annual return

You must submit your annual return within 10 months of the end of your financial year.

For example, if your financial year end was 31 December 2022, your deadline is 31 October 2023.

What charitable companies and unincorporated organisations need to submit

Income under £10,000

You only need to report your income and spending.

Select ‘Annual return’ from your available services when you login to your account.

Income between £10,000 and £25,000

You must answer questions about your charity in an annual return.

You do not need to include any other documents.

Income over £25,000

You must answer questions about your charity in an annual return.

You will need to declare that there are no serious incidents that you have not reported to us. Report serious incidents before you submit your annual return.

You will need to get your accounts checked and provide copies of your:

• trustee annual report
• accounts
• independent examiner’s report

You also need a full audit if you have:

• income over £1 million
• gross assets over £3.26 million and income over £250,000

Prepare your annual report and accounts first. You can then upload them when you complete your annual return.

What type of accounts you need to prepare depends on the type of charity and its finances.

What charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs) need to submit

You must answer questions about your charity in an annual return and include copies of your:

• trustee annual report
• accounts

If your income is over £25,000 you also need to:

• get your accounts checked
• submit a copy of the independent examiner’s report
• declare there are no serious incidents you have not reported to us. Report serious incidents before you submit your annual return.

You also need a full audit if you have:

• income over £1 million
• gross assets over £3.26 million and income over £250,000

Prepare and agree your annual report and accounts first. You can then upload them when you complete your annual return.

What type of accounts you need to prepare depends on your charity’s finances.

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posted 18 January 2024

When meeting ministers, The Almshouse Association continues to emphasise the importance of providing long term guidance and stability so our members can budget over a longer term.

Today (4 Jan 2024) the Regulator of Social Housing (RSL) published its annual rent limit guidance document. This latest Policy Statement on Rents for Social Housing applies to 2024/25 increases and confirms a maximum 7.7% for social housing rent increases ( i.e. the September CPI (6.7%) + 1% = 7.7%) from April 2024.

Annual adjustment of formula rent
Every year, the annual September Consumer Price Index figure is used to establish the limit on annual rent increases for social housing. The RSL’s Annual Rent Limit Guidance document document contains adjusted tables to help providers ensure that they use the correct annual percentage to increase their rent. It also provides the additional data needed to work out formula rent for new properties.
Full guidance on how to calculate formula rents can be found in the Policy Statement on Rents for Social Housing (Policy Statement) which is published on the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities website. The Policy Statement sets out the government’s policy on rents from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Whilst almshouse charities do not charge rent, and government guidance does apply to Registered Providers’ weekly maintenance charges, non-registered provider almshouse charities may want to use the information for information/ guidance purposes. Please also see our guidance here:
https://www.almshouses.org/news/wmc-specimen-outline-budget-2024/

posted 4 January 2024

Almshouses have been recognised in Government response to consultation on Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill 2023

As you are no doubt aware, there has been a significant debate on the National Planning Policy Framework. The Almshouse Association has called for this debate and is largely responsible for the questions in the debate around affordable housing definition. We believe that the charity model of almshouses should be included in this definition and have made that position ….. (probably tiresomely) clear to The Secretary of State. (many thanks to you all for your many letters.)

The results of that consultation were released on 20 December 2023 and can be accessed via:

Government response to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: reforms to national planning policy consultation – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

You will see that we were influential in two aspects: Q26/27

Key points:

• There was widespread agreement that community-led housing and almshouses have an important contribution to make in boosting housing supply and supporting affordable housing delivery.
• The responses focused on the requirement in the current definition of ‘affordable housing for rent’ that the landlord must be a registered provider of social housing. That requirement is seen by some as a barrier to non-registered organisations providing new affordable housing.  Many responses suggested that the removal of the registered provider test is widely seen as being helpful in enabling more community-led groups and almshouses – and potentially other organisations – to deliver more housing.
• There was widespread agreement that, in the absence of a registered provider test, some other strong safeguards would be needed to ensure good landlord practice, appropriate standards and appropriate pricing.
• Several respondents suggested that the current registration scheme may be the best way of ensuring adequate standards are maintained.
• In many cases, it was not clear from the responses that those who supported the proposal (that is, that the definition of ‘affordable housing for rent’ should be amended) were clear about why the current restrictions are in place. No respondents suggested that the removal of the registered provider test need to be accompanied by some other form of regulation or safeguarding of standards.
• Although not explicitly asked within the question, many responses included comments about accommodation falling within the definition of affordable housing not being affordable in practice.

The Almshouse Association is working with The Department of Levelling, Communities and Housing to see how this translates into change that local and national government can use to support the almshouse model – a small step forward. We will keep you in informed

posted 21 December 2023

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Christmas break and thank you for all your dedication and hard work in supporting almshouses, your residents and the almshouse movement throughout the year.

As we all look forward to 2024, we hope that it is a happy and special year for everyone.

Our office opening times over the Christmas break are as per the below:

posted 19 December 2023

Paving the way for the next generation of Regional Meetings

We are delighted to announce a new, streamlined process that empowers members to independently host a Regional Meeting. Through this innovative initiative, our primary goal is to help support increased collaboration and engagement among our members.

We believe that restructuring our Regional Meetings will enable more of our members to facilitate informal gatherings, fostering mutual support as well as nurturing the strong sense of community that characterises the almshouse movement.

What’s New?

We have developed a user-friendly template to make hosting regional meetings easy. Whether you’re a seasoned event organiser or new to this role, this resource will be invaluable in planning and executing a successful meeting.

Support

If you encounter any challenges or have questions along the way, we are here to support you.  Send us the date and timings for your meeting in our email invitation template along with information on your guest speaker and we will email members your invitation.

Getting Started

Read our checklist before organising a meeting to ensure you have the facilities to be able to support an event. Using our template invitation, you can then decide on a date and timings and source a guest speaker/s.

Once we have received these details, we can then organise for the invite to go out and will include your contact details so they can connect with you directly.

Share your success

We’d love to hear about your experiences and success stories with this new process. If you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement, please don’t hesitate to reach out to gerryharmon@almshouses.org. Your input will help us continue to enhance this initiative for almshouse members.

We look forward to seeing the continued positive impact of these regional meetings and the collaboration they will foster among our members.

Get in touch with Gerry Harmon if you need more information at gerryharmon@almshouses.org.

posted 7 December 2023

Policy and Governance update – Autumn Statement, Decarbonisation fund, Pension Credit, Social Housing Act, Pets in Almshouses

Latest Policy and Governance legislation that could impact and/or may require action from our member charities, with links to further information where applicable:

Autumn Statement

The Government’s announcement in the Autumn Statement to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance has been welcomed in the housing sector together with the decisions to uplift benefits payments in line with 6.7% inflation and state pension by 8.5%. 

The Government is looking at updating Work Capability Assessments as part of wider efforts to help more disabled people and those with heath conditions into work, together with long term unemployed.

Visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/employment-support-launched-for-over-a-million-people  

Decarbonisation Fund

Wave 2.2. of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund opened on 20 November with a deadline of 19 January 2024, with £80m of additional funding, for match funding delivery through to 31 March 2026.  Whilst applications with fewer than 100 eligible social housing properties can be considered, the preference is for applications for at least 100 homes, a number which could be reached via a consortium from eligible applicants including registered charities that own social housing.  Visit: https://www.salixfinance.co.uk/schemes/social-housing-decarbonisation-fund-wave-22  

This builds on the £778m in Wave 2.1., but the Government did not choose to release the full £3.8bn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, which seems a missed opportunity both in terms of financial and energy savings, and we hope this will be rectified in the Spring Budget – which is likely to be the last major financial change before the next General Election.  

The announcement of an additional £3bn for the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme, which can be accessed to finance works to improve the quality of existing homes as well as for new much needed affordable housing, has been welcomed by the National Housing Federation, as this measure is aimed at Housing Associations with registered providers being offered loans of up to 30 years to build affordable housing.  

A further £450m had been announced for a future Round 3 of the Local Authority Housing Fund, which whilst most commonly used by Local Authorities to build homes, does provide scope to work with other housing bodies. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-housing-fund 

Countdown to Deadline Day: Claim Pension Credit by 10 December and score extra £300 

Those who apply before the deadline could qualify for an extra £300 Cost of Living boost thanks to Pension Credit backdating rules. The average Pension Credit award is worth over £3,900 per year and it opens doors to other support, including help with housing costs, council tax and heating bills. 

Visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/countdown-to-deadline-day-claim-pension-credit-by-10-december-and-score-extra-300

Social Housing Act 2023

Members will likely have seen that the Social Housing Act includes Consumer Standards. The Association has been working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to amend this aspect of the Bill through its progress in Parliament and has gained a small but important phrase in the Act. The phrase provides confirmation that the Consumer Standards will only apply to Registered Housing Providers (RHPs) and whilst this is helpful it is only half the battle. We are now working with The Charity Commission and DLUHC to seek exemption from a number of aspects of the Act as it stands:

• Mutual Exchange – clearly unlikely to work for our members as their Scheme dictates the characteristics of the resident.
• Resident Management – whilst we are sure you are regularly consulting and engaging with residents it is only trustees who can make the decisions on the management of the almshouse charity.
• Tenancy Standards – clearly not been designed around Licence to Occupy and will need some unpicking.
• Qualification – we are making a case for exemption for almshouse charities as we believe that asking trustees to complete a qualification on top of their existing commitment is not reasonable.

We realise that the aspect requiring RHPs to be responsible for anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods is likely to be placing an unreasonable burden on members but the measures are based on reasonableness so hopefully that will be sufficient.

Pets in Almshouses

The Association is also watching the Renters Reform Bill as this also carries obligations that you may not be able to meet, although the wording in the Bill is changing to show “reasonable” steps. The only area where you will need to amend your policy is on allowing pets with the default position being to allow unless you have a strong reason not to. If you do not currently allow pets you may need to review the reasons for not allowing pets and add to your policy.

posted 30 November 2023