The Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations still does not have adequate information about unregistered groups, raising risks about operations and activities beyond its regulatory ability, according to a National Audit Office report.
The report, published Monday, found that there were 1,300 enrolled voluntary organisations as of August this year, but an uncertain number of groups that remained unregistered.
The lack of clear information hindered the Commissioner’s "planning capabilities and risk assessments", the audit office said.
The report follows legislative changes in November extending the Commissioner’s remit, streamlining enforcement mechanisms and obliging all voluntary organisations to register.
The NAO warned that the Commissioner was also facing a lack of information over financing, with many government ministries not informing the office when they issued public grants to voluntary organisations, and obligatory reporting requirements over fundraising left unenforced since 2012.
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It found an “environment of significantly high non-compliance” over the timely submission of annual returns but added that the Office of the Commissioner was strengthening its internal mechanisms in this regard.
“OCVO [the Commissioner’s Office] recently implemented procedural improvements, such as referring enquiries to national intelligence services and assigning a risk ranking to each VO. Nonetheless, the opportunity exists for OCVO to build on these initiatives by strengthening further its risk assessment approaches and the validation of VOs’ financial documentation with third party sources,” the NAO said.
Environment of significantly high non-compliance on financial reporting requirements
The report said recent initiatives and legislative changes last month would strengthen the office’s regulatory function, but only if its resources were augmented and its structure re-engineered in line with its broadened mandate.
“While acknowledging the importance of maintaining VO’s compliance costs at a minimum, OCVO is to consistently strive to inform and encourage these organisations to exploit the support facilities at both OCVO and Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector so that they would be in a better position to comply with legislative requirements,” it said.
“This will further nurture a culture of accountability and transparency within the Sector to complement the social benefits emanating from VOs activities.