A whistle and a hamper full of goodies is all Ian Allsop needs for Christmas.

There is an old adage that the countdown to Christmas (or the bean countdown as it is known) officially begins with the publication of the Charity Finance audit survey at the start of December.

I haven’t actually read this year’s survey yet but I expect that how charities can work with their accountants to better ensure financial survival may well feature. Now more than ever the wealth of knowledge and experience contained within the specialist charity teams of the leading accountants will stretch the limits of the phrase “added value”.

The survey is a long-established benchmarking exercise for charity FDs and dates back to 1602 when the first census of charity accountants appeared in Charity Groatage. The winner of the Most Esteem’d Book-Keeper award went to a Mr P Frammjie Esq. SMSMSM (The Society for the Maintenance of Sick and Maimed Soldiers and Mariners), Bridge Repairers’ Institute and Eton College received a mahogany chest stuffed full of the most sumptuous victuals of the day in the prize draw of respondents, although the latter was nearly disqualified as the editor couldn’t quite believe, even then, that it was a proper charity.

The inducement of a hamper to encourage charities to participate has long been a core part of audit survey folklore. I myself have filled in 358 online questionnaires under the guise of fictitious charities for the survey this year to boost my chances of snaffling some goodies. There is great cachet in winning this draw with the victors guaranteed hearty congratulations from fellow FDs for being lucky enough to win a random game of chance as if they had in some way actually demonstrated skill themselves.

No doubt the draw to see which of the three lucky respondents secured a wicker-bound selection of treats this year was undertaken under strict observation by that bloke in gloves off the National Lottery draw but in my day it was no more sophisticated than asking Soph in accounts to pick three random numbers between 1 and 846.

And it is not just important matters such as prize draws that now need to be conducted in a way that their fairness stands up to the rigour of scrutiny. The role of the auditor in scrutinising how charities spend their money takes on increasing importance following the recent huge amputation to the Charity Commission’s budget. The way it is going charity regulation will soon involve no more than Sam Younger standing up every once in a while and saying “charities, if you could all behave yourselves that would be smashing”.

While you might assume that the general public wouldn’t really care about redundancies at the sector’s regulator there has been outrage with thousands of protesters gathered outside the Charity Commission’s offices on Millbank last month although reports of Dame Suzi throwing a fire extinguisher out of the window have proved to be unfounded.

Perhaps we are headed for Big Society regulation where citizens will be empowered to volunteer to download a stack of annual reports from the Commission’s website and tell the local paper if they think anything is dodgy. A sort of informal system of whistle-blowing, but please provide your own whistles as the state can’t afford it.

However, I have come up with one ingenious way for the Commission to raise some spare funding. There should be a compulsory levy placed upon voluntary sector journalists or commentators who erroneously refer to it as the Charities Commission.

It will be interesting to see what tough decisions Younger makes in what must feel like a “they never told me about this at the job interview” introduction to his new role. If government is serious about charities’ role in mopping up the blood spilled in the cutting carnage they need to recognise the importance of an adequately resourced regulator, especially given its advisory remit.

Apparently international sympathy for the plight of some members of our society is such that in poorer parts of Africa instead of buying each other presents, people can opt to select from a catalogue to send to UK citizens such things as university fee vouchers, whistles or a sense of perspective. The sector will hope that Old Saint Nicholas Hurd can produce some equally useful presents from the sector’s wish-list out of his sack, preferably gift aid wrapped.

I would sign off by saying merry Christmas but that has probably been forbidden. Even if it hasn’t I expect the tabloids will merrily tell us it has, although it would be more constructive to ban hysterical tabloid stories about councils that have banned Christmas as they generally prove to be untrue. So for now, season’s greetings. I am off to the Charities Commission website to file 358 sets of fake accounts. And then I’ll check them for compliance myself.