The Directory of Social Change has recommended to the Sorp Committee that grantmaking trusts should be obliged to provide details in their accounts and annual report of all grants they have made.

As part of the Sorp consultation, respondents were invited to comment on whether details of grant recipients should be made available in the accounts, or continue to be published separately in another document.

In its response to the consultation, which closed this week, the DSC argued: “There is no benefit (in fact there can be a cost) to producing a separate publication. It is our experience that too many trustees fail to provide information about material grants made upon request.”

The DSC's policy and research director, Jay Kennedy (pictured), added: "Making clear who you have funded at least gives an idea to fundraisers of whether they will be eleigible for a grant or not."

DSC says grantmaking trusts should be obliged to provide details of all their grants in the accounts and annual reports.

ACF opposes suggestion

But the Association of Charitable Foundations has disagreed, saying it would create “unhelpful clutter” in accounts.

Carol Mack, the deputy chief executive of the ACF, said: “While we support the emphasis on disclosure of grant-making activities we think that the new Sorp proposals are too prescriptive about how this should be achieved. We are concerned that requiring foundations to include this level of detail in the notes to the accounts will add unhelpful clutter and in some cases make the accounts extremely long.

“The current Sorp allows this information to be omitted from the notes to the accounts as long as it is reported elsewhere and we think this is a more proportionate approach.”

CFG has also rejected the proposals to require grantmakers to list all grants made in the notes to the accounts.