The Cambridge Student Union (SU) has been found in breach of Charity Commission rules, Varsity can reveal. Their accounts, which were due at the end of April, have not yet been published.

The SU – like all charities – has to publish their annual returns, accounts, and trustees’ annual report (TAR). The SU, with an income of £911,927 last year, was supposed to submit its report 80 days ago.

This is not the first time that the SU has failed to submit reports on time. In 2017, Varsity reported that the SU filed its data 110 days late. The filings, once finally published, revealed a loss of £50,000. 

Although there are no penalties issued by the Charity Commission for late filings, they do appear permanently on record. The Directory of Social Change has shown that grant making trusts are less likely to support charities which fail to comply with Charity commission deadlines.

One grant maker said: “As a general rule we would refuse [a charity’s] application for funding”.

Neville Brownlee, former Chief Operating Officer for the Charity Commission, has said that “There is no excuse for charities to be late when they have 10 months to prepare and are reminded at regular intervals by us”. 

SU accounts from the financial year ending 2021 revealed a profit of over £50,000. This relative success comes after a period of losses for the SU, the worst of which was a deficit of £140,000 in 2017.

Fergus Kirman, as Chair of the Board of Trustees, commented: “Cambridge SU is late filing its accounts due to the original auditors contracted to carry out the 2021-22 audit withdrawing unexpectedly from the process after finding they lacked capacity to complete the audit. This necessitated us securing new auditors, which was a lengthy process and caused delays”.

“The draft annual returns, accounts, and trustees’ annual report (TAR) have been available for students to read since the Student Members’ Meeting on 13th March, and are online here”.

The SU expects the final accounts to be filed with the Charity Commission by the end of July.