A MUSLIM charity in Worcester has made “important changes” after it was slammed in a report for a series of failures and management errors.

A damning Charity Commission inquiry into the Jalalabad Association found the charity had run after school education at the mosque without carrying out basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) safeguarding checks.

The charity also failed to account for money donated to it - and failed to submit financial accounts for five years.

It was made the subject of an inquiry from the Charity Commission after worshippers raised concerns about £2,300 of taxpayers cash.

Mayor of Worcester Allah Ditta gave the charity more than £2,000 from his divisional fund in 2012 – a pot of cash that can be spent on local causes and in this case was supposed to pay for a day trip and computer equipment.

The day trip didn’t happen because of scheduling problems and the computer equipment was not bought because of fears over being burgled.

The charity repaid the money to the county council after the inquiry started.

After the opening of the inquiry, three founder trustees of the charity resigned their posts.

The inquiry found there were three further trustees who had never been registered with the commission and did not know they were trustees despite legally holding the position.

It was also found no-one from the charity had taken overall responsibility for administration, which included their arrangements for safeguarding and finances.

According to the commission’s report, the charity had been providing after school education at the mosque, but the trustees could not show any safeguarding measures such as that DBS checks had been carried out or considered.

In addition, the commission found three of the former trustees had been in their posts from the time the charity was founded without ever standing for re-election, as well as having not read the constitution.

The charity was also operating with “an insufficient number of trustees” and apart from bank statements, “there was little evidence of the charity’s income or expenditure.”

The trustees did not oversee the accounts, which were late from April 2013 until April 2019 and most money was collected in cash, with no formal records kept to account for its income.

On June 13 the Commission issued an order directing the charity’s executive committee to undertake a series of actions by December. This includes a direction on safeguarding, and the current trustees have already implemented a new policy, which includes the requirement for DBS checks.

A spokesman for the Jalalabad Association said: "We have taken tremendous strides to implement numerous process improvements to comply with the Charities Commission. This is acknowledged by the Charities Commission in their final enquiry report.

"The Charities Commission are satisfied with the changes implemented to date and as such have closed the inquiry.

"Jalalabad Association continues to work closely with the charities commission to implement further process changes."