1 July 2013
Charities stand to gain an extra £175million a year, if barriers
to giving directly from people's pay packets were removed,
according to new research released today.
Overall, nearly one in three people (31%) say that
they would be likely to give through their payroll if they were
offered the chance, according to a survey commissioned by the
Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) as part of an all-party
Parliamentary inquiry into giving.
At present only one in thirty four employees in
Britain gives regularly through their pay packet, with fewer than
8,500 out of the UK’s 4.8 million employers offering staff
the chance to take part in payroll giving.
Payroll giving allows people to give to charity before
tax is deducted from their salaries, making it easy to give
regularly to charity and helping charities to benefit from tax
relief on donations.
There are currently around 735,000 payroll donors in
the UK who gave a combined £118million to charity in
2011/12.
But a ComRes survey of 1,080 employees found that
nearly one in three (31%) employees say that they would be likely
to use payroll giving if it was offered to them by their employer,
while nearly one in ten (8%) said they would be very
likely to do so. If those people took up payroll giving it could
represent more than 2 million workers giving £177,402,528 a year
for charities.
CAF, Britain’s largest payroll giving provider, is
calling on the government to radically simplify the system to make
payroll giving more attractive for companies and employees. CAF’s
Growing Giving inquiry, chaired by former Home Secretary David
Blunkett , will examine how giving can be promoted in the workplace
as well as asking how business leaders can use their influence to
get employees engaged with charities.
The survey found that 65% of workers believe more
employees would actively support charities at work if they were
allowed to nominate a charity to support for the year, while 56%
saw offering information on how to support charities at work as a
particularly effective way to motivate employees to actively
support a charity at work.
Jeremy Bliss, Head of Corporate Clients at the
Charities Aid Foundation, said: “This survey shows that huge
numbers of additional people would like to give through their pay
packets if only they had the chance.
“Far too few people have the chance to give regularly
to charities and use tax relief on giving to make their donations
go further. Every employee should have the chance to use this great
way of giving to back the causes they really care about.
“We need the Government and companies to help us make
it easier to offer payroll giving and promote this great way to
donate so millions of people can get on with giving. In these tough
times for charities it’s vital that we take simple steps to make it
convenient for people to give.”
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP, chair of the
Growing Giving Parliamentary Inquiry, said: “ It's worrying that
only a third of employees think that their employer make it easy
for them to donate time or money to charity in their workplace. We
need to look closely at how businesses and workers can join
together in partnership to support good causes, and we'll be
looking closely at what action can be taken to grow giving at
work.”
The Charities Aid Foundation Growing Giving Inquiry is
currently taking evidence on Giving at Work. To submit evidence or
for more details, visit: http://www.growinggiving.org.uk/
Information on the current payroll giving environment
and take up by employers can be found in our report ‘The
Journey so far: 25 Years of Payroll Giving’.
ComRes conducted a survey of 1080 British people in either full
or part time employment from 7th-9th June 2013. Data was weighted
to be nationally representative. ComRes is a member of the
British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Full data tables
can be found at http://www.comres.co.uk/