Charities should make details of their senior executives’ pay clearly available on their website, no more than two clicks from their homepage, an NCVO report published on Tuesday will say.

The report on chief executive pay is the work of a panel of 18 figures drawn from the charity sector. It is chaired by Martyn Lewis, former newsreader and chair of the NCVO, and includes a number of chairs, chief executives and professional advisers to the sector.

The panel was convened following a series of reports in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail attacking charities for paying too much for senior staff.

The report will make a series of recommendations about transparency, with larger charities being told to make extra efforts to ensure donors understand their decisions on pay.

Charities will be told they must explain their decisions in setting the pay of senior staff.

The report will say that some charities feel high pay is necessary in order to attract top performers, and that this is a reasonable approach, but that charities need to justify any high pay packages.

The report is expected to have the backing of the Charity Commission.