Letter: Charities working hard for their money - and supporting the Exchequer

Sir: Chris Blackhurst gives the impression that Britain's charities are awash with cash. The overwhelming majority of charities have low reserves levels and work exceptionally hard to ensure that their funding goes directly to benefit the causes they were set up to help.

In terms of running costs, according to figures from the Charities Aid Foundation, the average spent by the top 500 charities in the financial year 1994/95 was just 14 per cent. This is less than half the proportion that the public in recent research by NCVO regard as being acceptable to spend on administration.

As for the system of regulation of charities requiring "an urgent overhaul", major steps have been taken with the Charities Act 1993, which has given the Charity Commission greater powers of monitoring and ensuring that all charities with incomes of over pounds 10,000 must make annual returns setting out how their money was spent.

STUART ETHERINGTON

Chief Executive

National Council for Voluntary Organisations

London N1