Marie Curie Cancer Care won the National Payroll Giving Excellence Award for the best civil society employer campaign.

The charity was up against the Retail Trust for the award and was praised by the judges for the way it uses its own scheme as a case study for other organisations.

In one month the campaign increased the number of employees signed up to the scheme from 10 to 50.

Denise Cummings, head of individual giving at the charity said: “I am delighted at the success of this campaign. It has given us a very practical example of what can be achieved in a short space of time.”

Hotel and restaurant chain Whitbread won best overall campaign at the event which was held at 11 Downing Street on 18 October.

The awards were presented by Chloe Smith MP, the recently appointed economic secretary to the Treasury and Sir Gus O’Donnell, cabinet secretary and head of the home civil service.

Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising compered the event and said: “This evening has been a wonderful example of philanthropy in action. All of tonight’s winners have shown how effective and beneficial it is to set up a Payroll Giving scheme in the workplace.”

Other winners on the night were:
Best launch of a new scheme – Inventive Leisure
Best re-launch of an existing scheme – Close Brothers
Best SME campaign – Think Money Group
Best large employer campaign – Whitbread
Best public sector employer campaign – HM Revenue and Customs
Best innovative promotional partnership – Think Money Group

Transferability

The issue of employees being able to continue with their payroll giving when they switch jobs, which has previously been highlighted as a problem with the system, was again raised.

Lewis and Smith both admitted to having given through a payroll giving scheme earlier on their career but they had stopped when moving jobs.

Smith said: “I used to give when I was at a previous employer but then I fell off the edge.”

Sir Gus O’Donnell added that: “We have got to manage the transitions so that we don’t lose people when they go away or when they retire.”

He also revealed that one-in-five civil servants donate through payroll giving and announced the creation of an inter-departmental forum to enable all government departments to come together and share best practise for promoting payroll giving.