Nearly a fifth of respondents to the PKF and CFG 2012 charity risk survey are either in the dark about their performance incentives or are under the impression that they have none.

The report Managing Risk – Making the most of your resources focuses on the issue of limited resources, and is published jointly by PKF and CFG today.

It reveals that 18 per cent of the 201 responses from UK charities (comprising a wide range of sizes and sub-sectors) said they have no clear incentive to perform well. Less than 5 per cent receive any performance-related financial objectives.

Lack of knowledge 'most worrying'

The survey also found that 30 per cent of managers do not have set objectives – even less than in the 2011 version, when the figure was 33 per cent.

Richard Weighell, head of PKF's Business Risk Services and author of the report, described this lack of knowledge among the respondents as one of the most worrying things in the survey.  

“In such cases, charities are unlikely to get the best out of their managers and are in danger of attracting merely those who seek an easy life,” Weighell told civilsociety.co.uk.

The report focuses on the main resource areas for charities including people, premises, investments and intellectual property, as organisations across the sector now have to do more with less.  

It looks into the key risks relating to these areas, and how charities are attempting to make best use of them. Income reduction and uncertainty are the risks most frequently cited by this year's respondents – unchanged from 2011.

Also explored are the ways in which charities are managing both their procurement and their own assets (in terms of human resources, services and supplies) to maximise value for money.

Managing Risk – Making the most of your resources is available online, and hard copies can be obtained from PKF on request.