Legacy fundraising should be made a requirement of Charity Commission registration, according to the Legacy 10 campaign group.

In a report on removing barriers to legacy giving, developed at the request of Culture Secretary Maria Miller and released yesterday, Legacy 10 said that all charities registered with the Commission should have to show proof that they have a legacy giving strategy, and current legacy income, in their annual reports. It further said that any organisation receiving funds from the Arts Council England should have to show evidence of fundraising, including legacy fundraising.

The campaign group, which aims to have people pledge to leave 10 per cent of their estates to charity in their wills, has also called for an overhaul of the honours system, doing away with honours simply for ‘services to business’. Instead, the group has called for philanthropic or charitable activity to be a mandatory element of any honour received for work in the business world.

Recent figures for the legacy market show that after a period of increase, during the boom period of the early 2000s, legacy income has remained flat or in decline for the last few years.

The group, which was founded by PR man Roland Rudd, issued a number of other controversial recommendations in a ten point plan for boosting legacy giving. Among them, that government and charities should joint fund a virtual legacy training programme, available on iTunesU and that government should create a charities ‘tsar’ who would oversee all charity policymaking across the different government departments.

Key adviser firms should also ensure that all their advisers discuss philanthropy, and specifically legacies and inheritance tax planning, with their wealth management clients, the group argued.

Legacy 10, created in the anticipation of the inheritance tax relief introduced by Chancellor George Osborne in April this year, also called on all three major parties to commit to the tax break, which sees a reduction in inheritance tax rates for estates which donate 10 per cent of their value to charity. The group said it wants to see legacy giving reach the rates enjoyed by the United States, where three times as many people leave legacies to charity. In the UK around 7 per cent of people leave a legacy in their will.

In the report, Rudd wrote: “We are realistic and know we cannot change attitudes overnight. Charities will still be driven by the need for money now rather than the promise of money in the future. But if the government and charities can grasp this challenge and collaborate, the recommendations we make in this report could change the face of giving in the UK.”

Miller is expected to consider the report and provide a full response to it in January next year.