Charity child sponsorship advertisements were given the green light this week by the Advertising Standards Authority in a ruling on a complaint about the adverts which nearly went against charities.

The ASA investigations team at first recommended that a complaint against Plan International’s sponsor a child television advert be upheld. The complainant alleged that the scheme was misleading in suggesting that donors’ money would go to an individual child, rather than to support children worldwide.

The recommendation, if it had been upheld, would have meant that all such sponsorship schemes, which are worth around £115m a year, would have fallen foul of the advertising regulator.

But after receiving a rebuttal from Plan International and a consortium of other charities, the ASA Council yesterday decided to overturn the recommendation of its investigations team. Plan had argued that donors would understand that ‘child sponsorship’ related to a personal relationship with an individual child who was benefiting from the charity’s work, made possible by donations.

Razi Mireskandari, partner at the law firm Simons Muirhead & Burton which advised Plan, said that the decision is a relief to charities. “If the ASA had upheld the complaint, it would have harmed the reputation and income of child sponsorship charities in the UK,” he said.