For umbrella bodies and Third Sector Interfaces
Scalable compliance support for the charities in your network. Built on a pilot, designed for reach.
The challenge
The problem you already know
Across your network, the same compliance gaps appear repeatedly. Trustees who have not reviewed their obligations since the charity was founded. Safeguarding policies that predate the current regulatory framework. GDPR notices copied from templates that bear no relation to what the charity actually does. Boards that do not know what the 2023 Act changed, or whether it changed anything for them.
You know this because your development officers see it every week. The knowledge exists in your network to help these charities, but the capacity to reach all of them, consistently, at the depth they need, does not.
The Charity Compliance Engine was built to change that ratio.
What a network deployment looks like
The CCE delivers a full governance review in a structured session of 60 to 90 minutes. Every session produces an agreed document map, a plain-English governance review, draft policy documents for the items the charity agreed to build, a branded PDF session record, and editable Word exports. Calibrated to the individual charity, grounded in Scottish law, and consistent in quality across every organisation it works with.
Consistent quality across your network
Every charity receives the same depth of review regardless of size, confidence or how well-connected they are. The engine does not have good days and bad days. A small rural charity gets the same quality of guidance as a well-resourced urban one.
An approach that respects member autonomy
The session does not hand charities a deficit report or a stack of templates. It starts from the legal baseline for that specific charity, each item with its legal basis stated, then the board discusses and agrees what else to build. Every framework is the charity’s own decision, recorded with reasons. That means no shelf policies, and no member feeling audited by their own support network.
Reaches charities that would not seek individual support
Many of the charities most in need of compliance support are also the least likely to ask for it. The CCE lowers the barrier: a structured session that requires no preparation, no prior knowledge of governance frameworks, and no sense of being judged for what the charity does not yet have in place.
Evidence your network can use
Every session produces a structured record that boards can present to funders, use in trustee induction, or retain as evidence of governance activity. Across a network, this builds a consistent baseline that is visible and demonstrable.
Members stay supported after the engagement
The session is the start, not the whole service. The engine retains each charity’s profile, agreed document map and session record, so when a member faces something new, a first employee, a funder requirement, an incident, a structural change, they return to an adviser that already knows them rather than starting again or going without. For your network, that means support that compounds over time instead of one-off interventions that fade.
Complements your development officers, does not replace them
The CCE handles the compliance baseline. Your development officers focus on the relationship, the follow-through, and the areas where human judgement and local knowledge matter most. One officer supported by the engine can give more member charities a consistent, documented governance review than capacity would otherwise allow. The two work together, not in competition.
Where we are now: building the evidence base
The CCE is currently in active pilot with Scottish charities. This is a deliberate phase. Before any network-wide deployment, we are building the track record that makes that deployment credible: testing the engine against real charities with diverse activities and governance structures, refining the guidance outputs, and demonstrating that the quality is consistent.
Pilot sessions are conducted directly by Stuart Gilliland, bringing three decades of governance and compliance experience to every engagement. The pilot is not a beta test left to run itself. It is a supervised validation process with a clear purpose: to prove that the CCE delivers what it promises before it operates at scale.
For umbrella bodies and TSIs considering a network partnership, the pilot is the foundation. Engaging now means shaping how the tool develops, contributing the kind of real-world variation that makes network-scale deployment robust, and being positioned as an early partner when the CCE moves beyond pilot.
We are not asking you to take a risk on an unproven product. We are inviting you to be part of building something that will serve your network for the long term.
The evidence, published
The sector-wide case is now public. The State of the Scottish Charity Sector reads the whole register through open data, and the interactive Sector Dashboard shows the same picture cut to your own council area. If you would like a written briefing on your area, ask. It is free and there are no strings.
Partnership
What a pilot partnership involves
We are looking to work with one or two umbrella bodies or TSIs during the pilot phase. The commitment is light and the value is immediate.
Identify two or three charities in your network
Ideally charities with different sizes, activity types and governance maturity. The variation is what makes the pilot useful. No preparation required from the charities themselves.
Each charity completes a session
Stuart conducts each session directly. Every charity receives the full output: compliance review, draft policies, PDF record and Word exports. Free of charge during the pilot.
Feedback and refinement
A brief debrief after each session to capture what worked well and what could be improved. Your development officers’ perspective on the outputs is particularly valuable.
Shape the network deployment model
Input into how the CCE should work at network scale: pricing, access models, integration with your existing support offer, branding considerations. Early partners have real influence over this.
Start the conversation
If you are a TSI, CVS, SCVO network member or umbrella body and you recognise the compliance challenge this addresses, we would like to speak with you.
The right starting point is a short conversation with Stuart to understand your network’s specific context and whether a pilot partnership makes sense. No commitment required at that stage.
Prefer something to circulate internally first? Download the two-page brief written for umbrella bodies and TSIs.