In future, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) will have new powers to ‘compel changes and improvements that need to be made in a charity’. At present the OSCR has very limited powers and is only able to ‘instruct’ a charity not to do certain things.

‘This positive power will allow us to respond flexibly and appropriately to the wide range of situations we encounter,’ the OSCR said.

The regulator will also be able to appoint interim trustees to help charities that cannot function due to a lack of charity trustees.