NCVO met with music licensing body PPL (Phonographic Performance Ltd) last week to discuss concerns over forthcoming licensing charges for charities that play recorded music in public.

The government announced in November last year that from April charities will no longer be exempt from paying fees for music used at events and in charity shops.

However, NCVO policy support officer Elizabeth Chamberlain said PPL has no timetable for announcing the new fee structure, only that it wanted it in place before the charitable exemption is removed.

“They are still in negotiations with different parts of the sector, and we kept raising more and more issues that they need to be aware of."

She added: “We remain against the whole principle so obviously we are trying to stall things as much as possible.”

A spokesman for PPL said the fee was likely to be approximately £75 a year, but that it was dependent on responses to the body's ongoing public consultation.

He added that in response to feedback, charities would only have to pay one annual fee, rather than, as for other organisations, separate fees to PPL and the PRS (Performing Right Society).

The campaign has been gaining support in parliament, with an early day motion submitted by Tom Levitt, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Community and Voluntary Sector, now up to 89 signatories.