What do I need to have ready before I start the application?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: covered, and the pack is genuinely shorter, not a smaller version of the England and Wales one — see below. Northern Ireland: covered — a comparable, fully published checklist exists, with two specific differences from England and Wales — see below.

Charity registration documents in England and Wales

This pack gathers what earlier steps produced, wherever you started reading. By now you have checked trustee eligibility and held your founding meeting. You have also worked out how to evidence your income and opened a bank account.

In England and Wales, you need the documents below. OSCR in Scotland and CCNI in Northern Ireland each ask for a different pack, set out further down. The Charity Commission’s online form asks for:

• the governing document as a signed or witnessed PDF
• your main bank or building society details
• proof of income unless you are forming a CIO, which needs none
• a public contact address, which cannot usually be a PO Box

For each trustee, it also asks for a signed declaration and their full name. The name goes on the public register. It also asks for each trustee’s full address, past names, date of birth and contact details.

None of these goes on the register.

If the charity works with vulnerable people, the form asks for two more things. One is a statement that the trustees have read the Commission’s safeguarding guidance. The other is a signed declaration that the checks needed have been done. Board oversight of safeguarding is covered in appoint a safeguarding lead and set board oversight.

Trustee privacy: what is collected and what is published

The Commission collects each trustee’s home address and date of birth. Only the trustee’s name goes on the public register. That is the first of two things that catch out people who see registering as a formality.

The second is the contact address. The charity’s own contact address usually has to be a real one, not a PO Box. The exception is special cases, such as a refuge.

A founder who runs the charity from home has often not thought about either point until now. They find both at once, often at the worst time to think them through.

The trustee declaration and the offence behind it

A trustee declaration is the signed statement each trustee gives with the application. In it, the trustee confirms they are not disqualified. They also confirm that the information given is true, complete and correct.

The declaration also carries a warning. Knowingly or recklessly giving the Commission false or misleading information is a criminal offence under Charities Act 2011 s.60. So is wilfully altering, suppressing, concealing or destroying a document the charity must produce to the Commission.

The offence reaches beyond the form. It attaches to the trustee who gave the information, not to the charity itself.

The Commission says plainly that it cannot accept electronic signatures on this form. Each trustee has to wet-sign. The forms then have to be scanned.

For a board spread across the country, that takes real planning. It is usually what makes this step take longer than a founder expects.

Northern Ireland: CCNI’s checklist and its two differences

CCNI sets out its own full checklist. It is much like the one for England and Wales. It asks for the governing document, bank details, trustee details and a signed declaration. But it has two differences to know before you start.

First, CCNI also asks for each trustee’s past names, for its checks as regulator. Like a trustee’s other personal details, these do not go on the register. Second, CCNI asks for no proof of income at all. That is because it has no income threshold.

Every charity registers, whatever its size. All documents have to be uploaded as PDFs. No other format is accepted.

Scotland: a genuinely shorter pack, not a smaller one

Scotland’s evidence pack is short by design, not by omission. Each proposed trustee fills in and signs a trustee declaration form. The pack holds those forms and a draft governing document, and nothing else.

OSCR does not ask for bank details before it will register a charity. It does not ask for proof of income either, because it has no income threshold.

The Scottish trustee declaration checks that the trustee is eligible. It uses the same kind of disqualification grounds as England and Wales. It also carries its own warning. Knowingly or recklessly giving false or misleading information is an offence under the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 s.26. So is deliberately altering, suppressing, concealing or destroying a required document.

That offence is summary-only. Its maximum penalty is much lower than for the England and Wales offence. Like the England and Wales offence, it has no “reasonable steps” defence.

Unlike in England and Wales, the Scottish form has no safeguarding declaration. OSCR touches on safeguarding only once. It asks an earlier planning question about the policies you expect to need, which you settle when you put your first policies in place. That question is not binding, and it is not part of the form.

Before you start in Scotland, check that the governing document matches your legal form. OSCR says the wrong type of governing document is the most common reason an application gets withdrawn. An example is a SCIO constitution for a charity that is a company.

OSCR does not publish a model SCIO constitution. Most founders use the one from SCVO, a sector body. OSCR has reviewed it but does not formally endorse it.

With the pack ready, you can apply to register in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Common mistake: using a PO Box as the charity’s contact address

Founders who work from home want to keep their address private. The Commission says a PO Box usually cannot be used, except in special cases such as a refuge. Finding this out when you submit forces a rethink about privacy that could have come sooner.

Common mistake: treating the trustee declaration as a formality

It is one form among several, and it looks like paperwork. But each trustee personally confirms the information is true, complete and correct. Each also accepts that knowingly making a false or misleading statement is a criminal offence.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust’s board has several trustees spread across the country. Each declaration has to be wet-signed and scanned.

Electronic signatures are not accepted. So the trustees start getting signatures as soon as the governing document is adopted. They do not wait until the online form is open. They have all the signatures with time to spare, and do not hold up submission at the last moment.