An online payroll giving service is ready for launch amid Philanthropy Review and government enthusiasm for the potential of payroll giving and calls from fundraising directors for structural changes to the system.

Big Change, set up by company CCWorks, enables charities to set up their own payroll giving web pages in order to promote and process payroll giving via their corporate partners. Charities are able to access their donor data directly and will not be charged processing fees – which will be charged to corporate partners at £25 per month - but pay a £50 set-up fee.

The site has launched with some high-profile charity partners, including Make-A-Wish, Help the Hospices and the British Red Cross.

Payroll giving has had a good year, the Charities Aid Foundation told CivilSociety.co.uk. Ahead of its official figures on give-as-you-earn, a CAF spokeswoman said it appears there will be a year-on-year increase in total income generated via payroll.

But still, there is much demand within the sector for a significant overhaul of the system.  

One of the Big Change launch partners, the British Red Cross' director of fundraising – and chair of the Institute of Fundraising - Mark Astarita was recently asked to step down as keynote speaker of the Institute's Payroll Giving Conference on Monday after he expressed his frustration with payroll giving, suggesting the model disenfranchised charities and that government should stop "bleating on" about it.

Karen England, director of fundraising at Make-A-Wish, said that while payroll giving is a "fantastic way to give… the system needs urgent attention."

"The way it's presented to individuals is so complicated," she added, arguing an online payroll giving system, as set up by Big Change, is the "way forward". She said the government should make the system both mandatory and portable.

Liz Tait, director of fundraising at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, backed their sentiments. "There are so many complications with payroll giving that despite best intentions it will be very difficult to achieve what [the government] are hoping it will,"  she said.

"You just can't invest in it [as a fundraising director] in any clear way. Maybe if there was a complete overhaul of the way payroll giving works, but it doesn't necessarily feel like there is an appetite in the sector to do that at the moment because it's not the biggest opportunity we've got."