UK Offence Report

Registrar’s power to require accounts of past years to be audited.

article 39C(2) of The Deregulation (Industrial and Provident Societies) Order 1996

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

2 A failure by

a registered society or branch to comply with any direction given by the registrar under subsection (1) above shall be an offence under this Act.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 39C(2)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Deregulation (Industrial and Provident Societies) Order 1996.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
3 July 1996
In force from
1 September 1996
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order amends the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts 1965 and 1967, the Friendly and Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1968 and the Friendly Societies Act 1974. Article 3 amends section 2(1) of the 1965 Act to reduce the minimum number of members required to form a society from seven to three, where the applicants are not solely corporate bodies; Article 4(1) amends section 2(2) of the 1965 Act to make it easier for federal societies to make application for registration. Currently up to nine signatures are required when a federal society applies for registration. In future only the secretary of each of two corporate members will be required to sign the application; also, societies which are founder members of a federal society need no longer send copies of their own rules to the Registrar— only the rules of the proposed federal society need be submitted; Article 4(2) amends section 10(1)(a) of the 1965 Act to make it easier for federal societies to register a change to their rules. Currently up to nine signatures are required when a federal society changes its rules. In future only the secretary of each of two corporate members will be required to sign the application; Article 5 amends section 39 of the 1965 Act to relax the requirement relating to the period for submission of the annual return so that all societies will have up to seven months for submitting their return; Article 6 amends section 43(1) of the 1974 Act by extending the date for submission by two months to 31 July so that all societies will have up to seven months for submitting their return; Article7 amends section 1(2) of the 1967 Act by extending the time limit for recording a charge against a society’s assets from 14 to 21 days and allows societies to submit late charges without a court order, subject to the protection of third parties; Articles 8 and 9 amend section 4 of the 1968 Act and section 39 of the 1965 Act and Articles 10 and 11 amend sections 30-33 and 40 of the 1974 Act to increase the audit thresholds for non-deposit taking industrial and provident societies and societies other than friendly societies registered under the 1974 Act to bring those societies into line with the provisions for private companies so that many more societies than at present will not be required to have a professional audit; Article 12 amends section 14 of the 1968 Act to remove the need for societies with subsidiaries, whose circumstances have not changed, to apply annually for exemption from the preparation of group accounts.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source