The UK's Charity Commission needs to do more to enforce regulations requiring charities to fully disclose the sources of their income, a report from the London-based Centre for Policy Studies argues.

The report, Transparency Begins at Home: Why Charities Must State Who Funds Them (20 pages, PDF), found that some of the largest charities in England and Wales appear unwilling to fully disclose the sources of some £3.4 billion ($5.1 billion) in funding, even as new rules requiring greater transparency will, in theory, make it more difficult for them not to do so. According to the study, the most recent annual reports and accounts of the fifty largest charities showed that at least £3.1 billion ($4.7 billion), or 24 percent, of their revenue came from government agencies, while the center estimates that the total amount of public funds they received could be as high as £6.5 billion ($9.8 billion).

While nearly all the charities examined by the report indicated that they received public money, more than thirty disclosed only partial or no information about such income or sources of government funding. Starting this year, the Charity Commission will require UK charities to state on their annual returns any funding received from government grants and contracts for the delivery of services. However, the report argues that to ensure full disclosure of the extent to which charities rely on public funds — for the sake of democratic accountability, the health of the charitable sector, and a better understanding of how the sector works — the commission needs to better enforce compliance among charities and auditors.

"Public money is provided by taxpayers, not the charities themselves," said William Norton, author of the report. "If charities are being supported to a considerable extent by public money, then taxpayers have a right to know that and to know it directly from the charities."