Di Flatt, director of fundraising at Epilepsy Action, has criticised the requirement that fundraisers make statements about how much they’re paid and expect to raise as ‘disingenuous’ and clunky.

Writing in the Fundraising Standards Board’s annual report, the fundraising director, and member of the regulatory body, wrote that charities need to take on responsibility for educating the public about the fact that it costs money to raise money, rather than make individual fundraisers go into specifics with every donor signed up.

Fundraisers and donors, she writes, need to focus on the impact and benefit of giving, not RoIs and expenses.

“The very need to make such a statement feels a rather disingenuous way to give information. Far better I am sure to deliver transparency in a more intelligent way and show the great good that will be achieved,” writes Flatt.

“Yes it costs money to raise money, but I believe it is my responsibility as the charity to deliver this message. Why should it be made the responsibility of the individual fundraiser?

“We may presently have to use solicitation statements. But please, no more talk of charity mugging and high costs. Let’s seek better ways to talk intelligently about our donors’ investment into the future.”

The issue of whether solicitation statements have improved transparency in fundraising was one of the specific topics on which Lord Hodgson called for evidence in the Charities Act 2006 Review.