01 Identity
Scottish charity record
- OSCR charity number
- SC027669
- Status
- Active
- Regulatory type
- Standard
- Designated religious body
- No
- Geographical spread
- Operations cover all or most of Scotland
- Volunteers
- 0 volunteers
- Staff
- 70
- Postcode
- EH1 1SR
02 Purpose and work
What the charity exists to do
Our charity’s mission is to ensure people living in Scotland have equal access to books, and all thebenefits that come from reading and writing. We are embedded in urban and rural communities and place a particular emphasis on supporting the diversity of Scotland’s languages and lifestyles, and tackling the link between poverty, illiteracy, the attainment gap, and poor social and health outcomes. We also aim to ensure that Scotland’s wide-ranging literary talent, both emerging and established, is nurtured and supported. Our programme offers a mix of both universal and highly targeted programmes specifically aimed at those most in need eg Bookbug, Reading Schools and Reading is Caring. We work with a very wide variety of stakeholder including all 32 Local Authorities, hundreds of community organisations, publishers, agents, and writers.
Charitable purposes
- the advancement of education
- the advancement of the arts, heritage, culture or science
- any other purpose that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to any of the preceding purposes
Beneficiaries
- No specific group, or for the benefit of the community
Activities
- It carries out activities or services itself
Constitutional objectives
The objects of the company are to advance education and the arts, in particular through education of the public in Scotland by encouraging writing for pleasure, creativity and the reading, study, appreciation and the knowledge of books and all forms of literature. The company’s objects are restricted to those set out in article 4 (but subject to article 6). The company may (subject to first obtaining the consent of OSCR) add to, remove or alter the statement of the company’s objects in article 4. on any occasion when it does so, it must give notice to the registrar of companies and the amendment will not be effective until that notice is registered on the register of companies.
03 Annual returns
Income and expenditure history
| Year end | Income | Expenditure | Staff | Return received |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 March 2025 | £5,966,731 | £6,158,866 | 70 | 19 December 2025 |
| 31 March 2024 | £5,906,887 | £5,808,069 | 70 | 13 December 2024 |
| 31 March 2023 | £6,123,133 | £5,819,264 | 70 | 22 December 2023 |
| 31 March 2022 | £5,806,668 | £5,482,692 | 70 | 15 December 2022 |
| 31 March 2021 | £4,840,064 | £4,324,540 | 70 | 17 December 2021 |
Figures are those reported by the charity and supplied in the OSCR bulk download. Blank facts remain distinct from zero.
04 Contact record
Principal office or trustees address
- Address supplied to OSCR
- Sandeman House, Trunk's Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh
- Website supplied to OSCR
- www.scottishbooktrust.com
- Parent charity
- Not supplied
No direct external links on this profile. The official OSCR record and source documentation are available through BritDB’s dedicated source page.
05 Provenance
Source for this profile
© Crown Copyright and database right 2026. Contains information from the Scottish Charity Register supplied by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. BritDB is an independent service and does not claim to be the Scottish Charity Register.