UHY in 2015 Celebrating 90 years

Our London team
acts as auditors
to two of the UK’s
largest endowed
grant-making
trusts.
Charity and not-for-profit
We have considerable experience in helping
charities and other not-for-profit entities
deal with the financial aspects of running
their organisations, from advising on the use
of trading subsidiaries and annual Charity
Commission submissions, to planning and
advising on the VAT position of property
and fundraising ventures. We recognise
that charity or not-for-profit organisations
operate within a dynamic, competitive and
highly regulated environment and there is a
need to manage tightly controlled finances
that are then transparently reported in the
public domain.
We provide external audit services to
charities and not-for-profit organisations of
varying size and complexity, covering a wide
range of activities and objectives.
Our London team acts as auditors to two
of the UK’s largest endowed grant-making
trusts, namely The Wolfson Foundation and
The Garfield Weston Foundation.
The national charity and not-for-profit
group is led by Subarna Banerjee, an audit
partner in our London office. The group
meets to discuss emerging sector issues and
to prepare technical updates and practical
recommendations for clients. Individual
members of the group participate in
professional special interest groups such as
the ICAEW Charity and Voluntary Sector
Group.
The charity sector in the UK forms a key part of the UK economy in
terms of manpower, procurement and the supply of services.
I chair the national charity and not-for-profit group (which
also includes the housing and education sectors). We have over
300 charity clients nationally which range in size from the largest
grant giving charities with endowments in the billions to much smaller
charities with modest incomes. We are able to offer independent
examination, audit, financial reporting, taxation and governance
advice to charities.
Key challenges for charities over the next few years will include
ensuring ever greater value for money for those charities delivering
services through contracts with local or central government,
particularly in light of a potentially fixed or reduced income in real
terms. Ensuring good governance will continue to be a focus given
recent high profile failures.
A new concern for trustees, following the proposal to increase the
audit threshold to £1m of revenue per year, will be assessing the
robustness of internal reporting systems, if they cannot use their
audited financial statements as a source of assurance over a
charity’s activities.
Subarna Banerjee
A partner in the London office and
Chair of national charities working group
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