The Children’s Society plans to double its number of stores over the next three years, according to its corporate services director Steve Porter.

Porter was speaking at a Charity Leaders event on trading, where he said the main growth area for the charity recently had been in retail:

“All other areas are lagging and struggling to achieve growth, but the one growth area has been retail.”

He said the charity planned to double its stores over the next three years. The Children’s Society currently has around 50 stores.

Porter said professional managers had been vital to the stores' success: “Three years ago we had a paid member of staff in 20 per cent of our stores. Now every shop has one. It makes a huge difference and instills a professional discipline.”

He said one of the main benefits of its retail income was that it gave the charity the flexibility to fund “non-sexy” stuff such as HR or finance departments.