We have recently seen many wonderful photos shared from RDA sessions across our network. These activities provide fantastic opportunities for engagement and enrichment, and we truly appreciate the effort that goes into making them special. 

However, we would like to take this opportunity to remind all Groups of the importance of best practice, risk assessment, and appropriate content when sharing images on public platforms. 

Key Considerations: 

• Safety Measures & Risk Assessments: All RDA activities should be conducted in line with appropriate risk assessments to ensure a safe and controlled environment for participants, volunteers, and equines. If any adaptations are made, please ensure they are fully risk assessed and recorded. 
• Hygiene Considerations: Maintaining good hygiene is essential, particularly when working with older or vulnerable participants. Ensuring that equines remain at a safe distance from food and drink areas can help minimise hygiene risks and cross contamination. 
• Image Content & Public Sharing: When sharing photos online, please ensure they align with best practices for safeguarding and privacy. Avoid images where safety measures are not visible or could be misinterpreted, as this may set unintended precedents for other Groups or Centres. 

We appreciate your commitment to delivering safe and enjoyable RDA activities and encourage all Groups to review their risk assessments and session setups to ensure they meet RDA guidelines. 

If you have any questions or require further guidance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Email groupsupport@rda.org.uk  

Changes now in effect 

Increased inquiry powers 

Part of OSCR’s role is to conduct inquiries into a charity when they identify possible misconduct or a risk to assets. The new Act provides increased powers: the  Power to direct charities to take particular actions, the power to appoint interim trustees, the power to inquire into former charities and former charity trustees, and changes to OSCR’s powers to require charities and others to provide information.  

Action – General awareness by trustees. 

Removing charities that fail to submit accounts and to respond to OSCR 

The 2023 Act gives OSCR the power to remove charities from the Scottish Charity Register that have failed to submit accounts on time and failed to engage with OSCR about putting this breach of trustee duties right. 

Action – Trustees must be aware of their obligation to submit accounts to OSCR within 9 months of their financial year-end and to respond to any inquiry made by OSCR. 

A charity’s connection to Scotland 

OSCR must refuse an application to be registered as a charity from organisations that have no or a negligible connection with Scotland. 

Other changes 

The 2023 Act has made minor changes to simplify interactions between charities and OSCR and provide more flexibility, mainly around the names of charities and how charities are entered into the register. 

Changes expected in 2025 

Publication of charity annual reports and accounts 

From mid-2025 OSCR will be displaying all accounts from Scottish Charities and in particular this means after charity accounts are sent to OSCR (including personal information) will be available for anyone to view on the Register for at least five years. OSCR recommends that charities consider what information to include in this narrative before they start to write their accounts. This could as an example, include listing trustee correspondence as the group address to protect the personal information of Trustees. 

Action – take appropriate action as recommended by OSCR 

Automatic disqualification 

OCSR share a current list of those automatically disqualified from being a charity trustee. The 2023 Act expands this criteria and will now include, for instance, those convicted of terrorism, or who are on the sexual offenders register.  

These criteria, which have previously only applied to trustees, are being extended to include staff or volunteers who undertake a senior management function for a charity 

Action – The timeline to introduce this change has yet to be confirmed but trustees should be aware of this pending change. 

For full details of the changes detailed in law please visit the OCSR website. 

OSCR | Changes to charity law after the Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023. 

If you require any further assistance then please don’t hesitate to contact your Regional Chair or RDA UK on groupsupport@rda.org.uk 

An opportunity to give your views about RDA’s future   

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has participated to date in the initial Listening Exercise as part of the RDA Governance Review.

Bookings are now open for the Governance Review Roadshows, which are the next part of the exercise – Our Governance: How We Work Together Tickets | Eventbrite. We are now able to give you further information about how the Roadshows will be run and what will be discussed.

The Roadshow Format

The Roadshows have capacity for 100 attendees at each event. They will be introduced by Barbara Manson, Trustee and Governance Review Steering Committee Chair.

Alongside her will be Steph Harland from CCE (Centre for Charity Effectiveness, City of London University), other RDA National Charity Trustees, and Michael Bishop our CEO. The events will last for two hours. Please do encourage everyone to book in and be part of the conversation – this is their chance to influence how we work together as a National Charity in the future and we are keen to hear everyone’s views.

There are five physical meetings across the UK – one in Northern Ireland, one in Wales, one in Scotland and two in England, and we have tried to balance the locations geographically as best we can. However, we appreciate that it may not be convenient to attend the events in person so we have planned two virtual events during October which can be joined from anywhere in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We very much hope that everyone across the RDA community can access either a physical or virtual meeting should they so choose.

Framing the Discussion – The Consultation Document

The Consultation Document sets out in some detail the topics for discussion at the Roadshows so that everyone has a chance to reflect and discuss these topics with fellow RDA volunteers in advance. The document is available on this link.

There is, as you would expect, much we could discuss and we have had to prioritise based on the collective feedback. There were also some very useful strategic and operational issues raised which fall outside of this governance review, and our CEO, Michael, will look to address these in his future plans.

Gathering feedback

The topics raised in the consultation document are topics for discussion. CCE will gather the feedback from the Roadshows, together with all feedback given between 11th October to 11th November 2024 through the Consultation Feedback form, to gather everyone’s input and prepare a report for the RDA UK Board.  

Everyone in RDA will be able to give Consultation Document feedback between the above dates, whether they have attended a roadshow or not.

In the meantime, if you have any queries please contact our email address governance@rda.org.uk

Thank you very much for all your support in this process and we hope this lays the foundation for a more consultative and collaborative approach to make sure our charity is in the best possible shape to support our member groups.

On 7^th November, our new Philanthropy Manager, Philippa Fairhall, visited Lambourn RDA to meet the team and their Tuesday participants.  It was a busy and enjoyable visit on a beautifully crisp, autumnal morning, with Philippa able to see a group of 7 children from a local special school take part in stable-based activities and riding, as well as two individual riders – a pre-schooler and a young adult – have sessions with their coaches, tailored exactly to their needs.  It was wonderful to chat with teaching assistants, parents and participants and see how much the sessions meant to everyone.  After the morning participants had left, the team also took time to celebrate volunteer Aaron’s 23^rd birthday together.  Aaron is a key member of the team, having been a rider with RDA Lambourn since he was 5 years old and the winner of his class at this year’s National Championship’s Countryside Challenge. Aaron has now finished his college course (which included his passion, equine care) and volunteers with the group in various roles up to 6 days a week.  Aaron’s quiet confidence around the horses and his friendship with his fellow volunteers was a clear example of, “It’s what you can do that counts”.  

A huge thank you to Frances Lochrane and whole team who hosted Philippa; it was a great learning experience for Philippa who, new into her role, was very keen to see our work in action before meeting major donors around the country and getting them fired up about our work.