A top sector auditor is asking charity leaders to unite in a more proactive response to press criticism, after drawing a positive reaction to his critique of a flawed Daily Telegraph front page article attacking charities.

In December Pesh Framjee, head of not-for-profit at auditors Crowe Clark Whitehill, published a response to A Hornet’s Nest, a report by the True and Fair Foundation, after identifying major flaws in its methodology.

The report, which claimed charities were not spending enough on their charitable purposes, was featured on the front of the newspaper but was widely criticised in the voluntary sector for presenting a simplistic view of charity spending.

Framjee revealed to Civil Society News that more than 8,000 people downloaded and read his response, and that the newspaper itself had published a codicil to its article linking to it.

But he said he believed more people in the sector must be proactively involved in such responses, and he is asking chief executives to work together to do so.

“The Daily Telegraph itself linked to my critique and made some small amendments to their article,” he said. “It didn’t take much work to do.

“The damage had been done by that point, though. We need people to speak up more in charities' defence.”

Framjee said he believed that charities “must guard the reputation of the sector as jealously as they guard their own reputation”.

He said he believed it was not enough for charities to react to criticism, and said the sector must be much more effective at driving the agenda.

“Charities and their trustees must be much more up front about this,” he said. “They must be much more effective at rebutting criticism of them in the press.

“This is particularly important for charities because the sector is seen by the public as a homogenous entity. If there is a report about bad practice at Oxfam it would harm Save the Children, and vice versa.”