Turning the tables: Putting Scottish charities in control of reporting

Lucy Heady, Sylvia Rowley

March 2008

It is essential for charities to demonstrate their effectiveness to funders through monitoring and reporting, but the current system often leads to poor quality reporting. This benefits neither the charity nor their funders.

It is also costly. We calculated that an estimated £450m each year of Scottish charities’ money is spent on reporting to donors.

In Turning the tables, we make a number of recommendations to charities and funders to make reporting more effective. For example, instead of offering bespoke reports to multiple donors, charities could create their own standard report to be sent to all funders.

We believe there are a number of potential benefits from standard reporting, including:

• An improvement in the quality and efficiency of reports
  
• A greater focus on outcomes and evaluation
  
• Freeing up more money to improve services

This report was commissioned by the Scotland Funders’ Forum and funded by the Big Lottery Fund. NPC is currently undertaking a similar project in England, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, which is due to be published by early summer 2008.