Complaints about big charities will be revealed in full

BIG charities will be forced to reveal how many complaints they receive about aggressive fundraising.

The charities’ regulator currently publishes the total number of complaints about all big organisations, but does not say which are the worst offenders.

But under new transparency arrangements detailed in laws published in Parliament yesterday, large charities will be obliged to document the number of complaints about fundraising carried out by them or those acting on their behalf.

Civil society minister Rob Wilson said: ‘Bad practices won’t be tolerated.’

Ministers acted after the aggressive tactics of some of Britain’s biggest charities – including the NSPCC, the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Macmillan – were laid bare in a Mail investigation last week.

Charities made calls to people on the official ‘no-call’ list, the Telephone Preference Service, and their fundraisers were ordered to be ‘brutal’ when asking for money.

The latest figures show there were 52,389 complaints about charity fundraising last year, up by 8 per cent from 48,432 in 2013.

The new law will force charities to have legal agreements with their fundraisers committing them to show how they will protect vulnerable donors such as the elderly.

Charities with a turnover of more than £1million will have to document how they are monitoring their fundraisers.