Gavin McEwan
Gavin McEwan is a Partner and Head of Charities at Turcan Connell working principally in the fields of charity law, succession, trusts and tax. He is the Head of Turcan Connell's Charities Legal Team, is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in charity law and chairs the Law Society of Scotland’s panel on specialist accreditation in charity law. He is a member of the Charity Law Reform Committee of the Law Society of Scotland and the Charity Law Association Executive Committee and Standing Tax Committee.
Gavin's work in the area of charity law includes the establishment and reorganisation of charities, from Royal Charter bodies and major public trusts to smaller active and grant-making charities. He also advises a number of national institutions, arts bodies and historic houses.
Gavin is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde and trained at W & J Burness WS and Turcan Connell. He qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and became a Partner at Turcan Connell in April 2010. He has a broad interest in opera and the arts. Gavin is General Editor of the Scottish Private Client Law Review and author of the Scottish chapter of Tolley's Charities Manual, the Scottish chapter of the Global Guide to Charity Law, and a co-author of W Green’s Practical Guide to Charity Law in Scotland. Gavin is a trustee of a number of charities, including the Lawscot Foundation, the Edinburgh International Festival Endowment Fund and Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh. Gavin also sits as Legal Assessor to the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He is a member of the board of directors of The Dean Cemetery Trust Limited
Practice Areas
Panels
- Scottish Panel
- Specialist Panel
Education
- University of Strathclyde
4 Contributions by Gavin McEwan
PRACTICE NOTES
Charitable trusts in Scotland: creation and OSCR/HMRC registration, governance and trustee duties, risk and liability, reorganisation and winding up, with reforms under the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024
FORTHCOMING CHANGE:
The Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024 gained Royal Assent on 30 January 2024, marking the most significant reform of Scottish trust law in more than a hundred years. Once commencement orders are issued, this Practice Note will be revised to align with the new legislation.
A trust is one of several legal forms available to establish a charity in Scotland. By definition, charitable trusts are governed by both charity law and trust law. Of roughly 24,600 entries on the Scottish Charity Register, about 3,000 operate as charitable trusts (2025 figures). Many bodies are colloquially called ‘trusts’ despite being constituted as companies limited by guarantee, Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIOs), or created by Royal Charter or Act of Parliament. This Practice Note concerns charitable trusts in the strict sense, not other structures that merely include ‘trust’ in their title.
Creation and obtaining charitable status
Setting up a charitable trust in Scotland mirrors the process for any charity, requiring an application to the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) (see Practice Note: Creation of charities in Scotland)...
Private Client
PRACTICE NOTES
Scottish charities’ restricted, designated and endowment funds: donor conditions, OSCR reorganisation schemes for large, small and very small funds, cy-près, and 2024 legislative updates
Unrestricted funds—general use of assets
The overarching rule for applying a charity’s assets is that, unless a specific restriction applies, both income and capital should be used to further the charity’s purposes and to deliver public benefit. Even where funds are classed as unrestricted, there may still be constraints on spending income and capital on the charity’s assets, typically set out in the charity’s constitution. Constitutions may impose conditions on distributing income, on carrying income forward for use in later years, or on accumulating it and converting it into capital. Limits on distributing capital may likewise be specified in the constitution. Where the constitution is silent, the usual expectation is that trustees will, as a minimum, distribute income and have discretion to distribute capital. Funds that are not unrestricted generally fall into three main types:
designated funds (which are truly a subset of unrestricted funds)
restricted funds (which, generally speaking, include the misnamed category of expendable endowments)
endowments (sometimes also referred to as permanent, non-expendable or income-only endowments)
Designated funds...
Private Client
PRACTICE NOTES
Scottish Charity Fundraising Regulation: Enhanced Self-Regulation, Adjudication Panel, Cross-Border Complaints, and Statutory Controls on Street and House-to-House Collections, Solicitation Statements and Fundraising Agreements (2025 Code)
FORTHCOMING CHANGE:
The Fundraising Regulator has recently revised the Code of Fundraising Practice, and a revised code was published in early 2025. The revised code will take full effect from 1 November 2025, with a structured transition phase commencing in May 2025.
Self-regulatory regime in Scotland
Apart from limited statutory provisions, charity fundraising in Scotland is self-regulated. Since July 2016, following a review carried out on behalf of the Scottish Government, the regime has been described as enhanced self-regulation. This places the initial responsibility on charities when concerns about fundraising practice arise.
Fundraising staff (where they exist) should seek to resolve a complaint at the first opportunity.
If this does not work, the second stage is a direct complaint to the charity’s trustees.
Role of the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel
If a complaint needs to go beyond a charity’s trustees, the third and final step is to take the fundraising complaint to the Scottish Fundraising Adjudication Panel (the Panel), formerly known as the Scottish Fundraising Standards Panel. The Panel was established for the specific...
Private Client
PRACTICE NOTES
Scottish Charity Law: OSCR’s Functions, Monitoring and Enforcement; Accounting and Fundraising Rules; Appeals; and 2023 Act Reforms (2025 commencements and audit threshold increases)
FORTHCOMING CHANGE:
The Charities (Regulation and Administration) (Scotland) Act 2023 will be implemented in two additional stages, which are expected to occur (i) in late summer or early autumn 2025 and (ii) by the close of the 2025 calendar year, respectively. The Scottish Government has indicated it will legislate to revise the accounting audit thresholds in Scotland, in order to raise the gross income threshold from £500,000 to £1m. New regulations are expected in autumn 2025.
Regulation by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) was created by the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (2005 asp 10) (CTI(S)A 2005) to be the registrar and regulator of Scottish charities. It functions as the registrar and regulator of Scottish charities...
Private Client
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