Cards Galore has been awarded the 'Scrooge Award' for charity Christmas cards this year, as Dame Hillary Blume criticises charities for failing to work together to increase revenue received from the mechanism.

igh street card retailer Cards Galore has today been outed as the least generous of all charity card retailers by the Charities Advisory Trust in their annual ‘Scrooge Awards’. The trust was critical of Cards Galore for the fact that two thirds of its charity card range gave less than 10 per cent of their sale value to charity.

Regular offender Harrods, meanwhile, was applauded for its redemption with the ‘Reformed Sinner’ award. Harrods, which had regularly appeared as one of the worst offenders in the awards, now gives a minimum of 10 per cent to charity from its entire Christmas card range.

In bestowing the awards, the Charities Advisory Trust also took a swipe at charities for not driving a harder bargain with the manufacturers of their Christmas cards. In a survey conducted by the trust a quarter of charities reported getting less than 2 per cent of the ticket price from the cards sold bearing their name.

High street discounting also drew the ire of Dame Hillary, director of the trust. "I don't think discounting charity donations is appropriate. What do we say to a child in Africa. Sorry, you can't eat every third day because a lady in the UK needed to save money on her Christmas cards?” she said.