UK Charity Commission Portfolio Status Monitor

Watch a list of England & Wales charity registration numbers and receive typed Registered / Removed / name / interim-manager events when the official Charity Commission Register flips — Registered → Removed, restorations, main-name changes, optional interim-manager flags. Not another Charity Commission directory scrape. Not ComplyTrack / CharityIQ seats. Not Companies House dissolution (different register). Not OSCR (Scotland) or CCNI (Northern Ireland) as primary.

A1b (v8) — already PASS

Cited from opportunity/reports/phase3-a1b-next3-v8.md + phase3-demand-first-v8.md (do not invent competitors):

Field	Evidence
DIRECT SAME-JOB COMPETITORS	0 adopted charity#-portfolio status-change products. Directory dumps (different job): ryanclinton/uk-charity-commission (1 MAU / 9 tot); scrapesage/uk-charity-commission-leads (1); parseforge/uk-charity-register-scraper (1); automation-lab/uk-charity-commission-register-scraper (1 NEW); others @ 0–1.
EXTERNAL DEMAND	ComplyTrack / CharityIQ-class Charity Commission compliance monitoring seats; grant-makers re-check Registered status.
OUR WEDGE	Charity-number watchlist × scheduled Register API / OGL extract snapshot diff → typed events only for the book.
Legal	GREEN — OGL v3.0 / official API; user-supplied portal key for API path; trustee PII default OFF.

Honest coverage (read before buying)

Included	Not included
England & Wales charity# reg_status (R/RM ↔ Registered/Removed)	OSCR (Scotland) / CCNI (Northern Ireland) as primary
Main charity name changes	HTML scrape of register-of-charities UI
Optional interim manager (Register API interim_manager_ind)	ComplyTrack / CharityIQ keys
Official OGL full-register daily extract or Register API	Nationwide new-charity lead dumps
Lookup by charity number on your watchlist only	Trustee PII (default OFF)
Open Government Licence v3.0 attribution	SLA / uptime guarantees

Live paths:

1. OGL extract (no key): stream-filter official publicextract.charity.zip for your watchlist.
2. Register API (user-supplied key): GET …/charitydetails/{n}/{suffix} / charityRegNumber/{n}/{suffix} with header Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key (free developer portal).

First observation stores a baseline (no charge). Quiet days ≈ $0 product charges.

Value proposition

• Charity# watchlist × Register/OGL snapshot diff → UK_CHARITY_REMOVED, UK_CHARITY_REGISTERED_RESTORED, UK_CHARITY_NAME_CHANGED, optional UK_CHARITY_INTERIM_MANAGER, UK_CHARITY_GONE.
• Official Commission HTTP / OGL only. No ComplyTrack / CharityIQ key.
• Pay only for unique delivered change events. Durable KVS checkpoint + event_uid dedupe.

PRODUCTION USE (required for real monitoring)

Store default ≠ product. Schema defaults use sourceMode=fixture so Apify Store daily auto-tests leave a non-empty health dataset without calling the Commission. That fixture path only writes a non-billable RUN_STATUS / FIXTURE_HEALTH row. It is not charity monitoring.

For production monitoring you must:

1. Set sourceMode = live
2. Choose liveBackend: ogl (free extract, no key) or api (requires charityApiKey)
3. Provide your charityNumbers watchlist
4. Schedule runs (daily is typical; Register/OGL are snapshot/poll-class, not a stream)

Official references:

• Register of Charities (England & Wales)
• Full register download (OGL)
• API developer portal

Apify Store daily auto-test / default input

Field	Default
charityNumbers	["202918","220949"]
signalGroups	status, identity, interim_manager
sourceMode	fixture
emitFixtureDemoEvents	false
includeTrustees	false
maxRunSeconds	55
requestPaceMs	250

On that path the Actor SUCCEEDS quickly, pushes exactly one RUN_STATUS / FIXTURE_HEALTH row (billable: false), and does not charge charity-status-event-delivered.

Input (summary)

Field	Notes
charityNumbers	Watchlist (required, England & Wales charity#)
signalGroups	status, identity, interim_manager
sourceMode	fixture (default) or live
liveBackend	api or ogl (auto: api if key else ogl)
charityApiKey	Required for live+api (isSecret)
oglExtractUrl	Optional OGL zip URL override
emitFixtureDemoEvents	Default false
includeTrustees	Default false (A5)
maxRunSeconds / maxEvents	Budgets
resumeFromCheckpoint	Default true
requestPaceMs	Default 250 (API path)

Production example (OGL, no key)

{
  "charityNumbers": ["202918", "220949", "205846"],
  "signalGroups": ["status", "identity"],
  "sourceMode": "live",
  "liveBackend": "ogl",
  "asOfHint": "2026-09-17",
  "maxRunSeconds": 300,
  "resumeFromCheckpoint": true
}

Production example (Register API)

{
  "charityNumbers": ["202918", "220949"],
  "signalGroups": ["status", "identity", "interim_manager"],
  "sourceMode": "live",
  "liveBackend": "api",
  "charityApiKey": "<portal-subscription-key>",
  "maxRunSeconds": 300,
  "requestPaceMs": 250,
  "resumeFromCheckpoint": true
}

Output

Change events (billable under PPE)

Typed rows include: charity_number, charity_name, event_type, event_subtype, changed_fields, previous_value, new_value, as_of, evidence, summary, source_url, event_uid, reg_status, billable: true.

RUN_STATUS (never billed)

Every successful run pushes one health row (FIXTURE_HEALTH | MONITOR_IDLE | CATCHUP_COMPLETE | HEALTH_OK).

Pricing

Pay-per-event: charity-status-event-delivered at $0.02 per delivered unique change event ($20 / 1,000). Single tier (see docs/monetization.md and ADR 0010). Health / baseline / duplicate / fixture rows are never charged. apify-actor-start ~$0.00005.

Local development

cd actors/uk-charity-commission-portfolio-status-monitor
npm install
npm test
npm run build
apify run -p

Attribution

Data originates from the Charity Commission for England and Wales under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Register API / full-register extract). Not an official Charity Commission product. Not ComplyTrack / CharityIQ. Covers England & Wales only.