The amount donated to charity by Britain and Ireland’s 1,000 wealthiest people fell by more than 10 per cent last year, despite a record-breaking increase in their total wealth.

The Sunday Times Rich List, released yesterday, found the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in the region rose by 30 per cent to £333.5bn over 2009, meanwhile, however, the amount given to charity by those same 1,000 people fell by £324m to £2.493bn.

The fall, which is 37.4 per cent in real terms when considering the rise in wealth over the year, can be partly attributed to the £885m given away by Lord Ashcroft in 2008 – an effort not repeated in 2009. However, the Sunday Times reports that in this year’s list philanthropists had to give away 3.2 per cent of their wealth to make it onto the top 30 in the Giving List. Last year that figure was 4.5 per cent.

Hedge fund manager Christopher Cooper-Hohn retains a firm hold on the number one position in the list, giving over £530m to his Children's Investment Fund Foundation in 2009 and with a giving index value more than six times that of supermarket magnate Albert Gubay, who ranks as number two. Gubay made headlines earlier this year when he announced plans to give away the vast majority of his fortune to the Catholic Church and other charities. Gubay was one of nine new names on the Giving List’s top 30.

Cooper-Hohn’s generosity to his charity saw the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation climb into the number four position on the Charity 100 Index this year.

The behaviour of the top 1,000 in 2009, as reported in the 2010 Giving List, was almost exactly opposite to their behaviour in the previous year when, despite facing a decline in total wealth of a third in 2008, the richest 1,000 increased their giving by 8 per cent, or £212m.

The full Sunday Times Giving List will be published next weekend.