A top civil liberties and human rights barrister has called on law firms to double the rate of employee use of payroll giving between now and May this year.

Speaking at a Geared for Giving event in mid-February, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (pictured) encouraged all firms to either set up or revitalise their payroll giving schemes and to aim for a 10 per cent participation rate by May 2013.

At present, according to Legal Week, only 5.1 per cent of employees in the top 50 law firms donate via payroll giving.  This is still significantly higher than the take-up among the higher-rate taxpayers in parliament, however, with fewer than 2 per cent of MPs using payroll giving to support charity.

Baroness Kennedy said: “Awareness of the scheme is still low, but employers which make it easy for their staff to engage can see huge improvements in their uptakes and ultimately monies raised for the charitable sector.”

While the initiative was held at the House of Lords and involves a call to all law firms, there were representatives from eight in attendance.