NCVO and the Charities Aid Foundation have ditched their annual co-produced philanthropy report, UK Giving, after the 2012 report prompted much criticism within the charity sector.

The two organisations today announced that they will be building on their individual research strengths and develop “complementary programmes of research”, but have no plans to produce any more co-authored reports.

This means that there will no longer be any UK Giving report, which in 2012 reported a 20 per cent decline in individual giving. This £2.3bn equivalent drop was described in the report as “deeply worrying” but many in the sector, particularly the Institute of Fundraising, questioned the research and argued that the 20 per cent drop was not widely reflected in the sector.

CAF said that it is looking to evolve the report into a quarterly donor survey which will look at attitudes towards giving as well as behaviour. It intends to produce an annual report, using its own analysis, this month, and will consult with the sector about methodology for the quarterly reports, which it intends to launch in about a year's time. It expects that these quarterly reports will build on the remit and results from previous UK Giving reports.

A spokesman for NCVO told civilsociety.co.uk that the backlash against the last UK Giving report was not behind the decision not to run it again, but rather it was an issue of resource. Costs associated with the survey were due to increase, and NCVO decided it would best concentrate its efforts on its other research work. The UK Giving report was produced from 2004/05 to 2011/12.

NCVO and CAF will now work independently, with CAF saying it intends to build on the UK Giving report and develop a quarterly donor tracker survey. NCVO meanwhile will focus its research efforts on its Civil Society Almanac, the next edition of which will be published next month.

This means that CAF will continue to base its research on giving on donors own reports of their giving habits, while NCVO will focus on charity accounts.

NCVO director of public policy Karl Wilding said: “These new programmes will enhance the sector’s evidence base and produce valuable insights to inform the public and charities alike.”

Deborah Fairclough, CAF head of research, said that CAF was delighted with the plans for “important, complementary work”. “NCVO’s work analysing charity accounts and other data makes a great contribution to shedding light on our sector and promoting the vital work of voluntary organisations and we are delighted they will be building on this work,” she said.

“At CAF we are excited to be able to take forward and update the long-running survey work into giving and hope we will be able to complement other research in the sector and give an updated and more frequent view of trends.”