According to a Charity Commission survey, not enough small charities are providing correct information in their annual returns because too many are relying on someone with insufficient knowledge of their organisation’s accounts, leading to errors.

In a review of a sample of charities, 38% of charities with incomes below £25,000 per annum were found to be submitting inaccurate data. Small charities make up two thirds of all charities on the register and basic information on income and expenditure is the only financial information most are routinely required to provide to the Commission.

Nigel Davies, head of accountancy services at the Charity Commission, said: ‘Not providing accurate financial information is misleading and can have an impact on public trust. People want to know how charities spend their money; so this result is clearly not good enough.’