Advising charities on all issues facing them, from governance and regulatory matters to contracts, property matters, employment, litigation, health and safety, intellectual property, data protection and so on. 

Providing training on charity law and regulation for clients and contacts.  In this context, we also work with other organisations, like the Legal Services Agency and SHARE (Scottish Housing Associations Resource for Education), to provide training to charities. 

BTO assisted with the following:

(1) incorporate as a company limited by guarantee, obtain registration as a charity and obtain registration as a Registered Social Landlord

(2) set up a subsidiary (company limited by shares) to undertake non-charitable trading activities

(3) acquire a Council's housing stock by way of a large scale voluntary transfer, which included ensuring our clients would be able to undertake significant regeneration projects and manage housing transferred to them.

Setting up of proposed new charities and obtaining charitable status for existing clients that previously did not have charitable registration. This includes advising on the new form of incorporated body, a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation or SCIO.

Assisting a charitable client on queries raised by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) in response to representations made to OSCR by a third party.

For 6 months in 2011-12 Marion Davis, Associate was seconded to OSCR working on (1) individual charity cases, such as status applications, compliance inquiries, reorganisation queries, queries regarding consent applications and other miscellaneous queries and (2) more general matters such as policy development, consultation responses, guidance notes, training internally for OSCR, and externally for Strathclyde University.

Examples include: to merge two existing trusts with similar objectives into one new trust; or to amend the constitution of a charity constituted by Act of Parliament.

On behalf of a client, to allow an existing charity to transfer its assets to the new SCIO; advice regarding SCIO set up; advice regarding contracting with a SCIO.

Advising on consent applications, whether for changes to purposes, name changes, winding up and so on – from framing the application to finalising proposal once OSCR consent achieved.

For an existing charitable client (a regeneration company) and its subsidiary, we negotiated complex contracts to ensure that the regeneration and community benefits our clients wanted to achieve could be progressed.

An existing charitable client proposed to undertake a new activity and we corresponded with OSCR to ensure that the proposal was an acceptable charitable activity offering appropriate public benefit in the context of the charity's objects and charity law.

We work with Social Firms Scotland, the national support body for the development and promotion of social firms in Scotland, many of which are charities, as is the body itself. We offer advice on charity law and lead workshops on various aspects of the law as it applies for social firms.

This resulted in the promotion of an Act of the Scottish Parliament and involved a consultation process prior to introduction of a Private Bill, which we drafted. We also drafted the statutorily required Explanatory Notes, Promoter’s Statement, Promoter’s Memorandum, advertisements and other ancillary documentation. The Bill was then subject to a full Scottish Parliamentary reading and committee process in which we assisted our client in production of all required documentation, formal notices and in giving evidence to the relevant Parliamentary committee. The Act was passed in the Scottish Parliament and enacted, allowing our clients to up date their constitution and manner of operation.

For various clients, some of which are charities, others considering charitable status, we have given presentations regarding the implications of charitable status and OSCR's regulatory regime.

Advising an existing charitable client regarding various intellectual property matters, for example, advising on a possible franchise arrangement to access particular web-based intellectual property for a fund-raising venture and negotiating and completing licence and copyright agreements.

Advising trustees in connection with their duties and obligations vis-a-vis the Charity itself and the employees.

For example, amendments to a constitution to reflect changes in founding members and membership agreements.

Advice on development proposals by charity RSLs, where house building or refurbishment followed by sales on a shared equity scheme or other low cost home ownership scheme are being proposed.