The value of payroll giving for charities increased by £37m to £155m last financial year, not the £6m increase HMRC originally reported.
The HMRC yesterday issued new figures, dramatically revising up the previous numbers released last summer, which estimated the total value of the scheme as £124m for 2012/13.
The spike in the value of payroll giving to charities coincides with a dramatic increase in the number of employees using the scheme, up 39 per cent to top one million donor employees for the first time.
In the previous year just 732,000 donors were recorded by HMRC, with that figure fairly steady at 720,000 to 760,000 for the previous five years.
Peter O’Hara, managing director of Workplace Giving, told civilsociety.co.uk that his firm has far more confidence in the new figures than those released last year.
O’Hara said that no single factor could be credited with the exponential rise of payroll giving participation and value, but that many different elements have come into play.
“We definitely see more workplaces opening up, and more employees signing up to the scheme,” said O’Hara. He added that the increased number of charities encouraging employees to engage in payroll giving from the charities' own websites has likely had an impact.
“Visibility of payroll giving has definitely increased,” he said.
In releasing its new figures, HMRC said that the revision was due to a change in the way it collects data and to some payroll giving agencies changing their own data systems.
The stark results come after much criticism of payroll giving as a stagnant and underperforming area of fundraising. Last autumn, following a consultation with the sector, the government unveiled changes to the payroll giving system designed to encourage greater take-up among both individuals and employers.
The revision to figures also follows criticism of HMRC late last year by the National Audit Office which claimed that the former organisation did not keep sufficiently detailed data on the impact that tax incentives, like payroll giving, have on giving more broadly.
