Polling snapshot in wake of sex abuse scandal shows that trust in charities is still high

Half of people across the UK still believe charities are trustworthy.

This is despite a spate of allegations, sackings and resignations across the aid sector, linked to claims of sexual abuse and harassment.

A Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) snapshot of opinion taken after stories about the conduct of Oxfam staff in Haiti, which kickstarted all the bad publicity, found that levels of trust in charities were consistent with those in previous months, with around half of those surveyed (49%) agreeing that most charities were trustworthy.

This is consistent with levels of trust in charities recorded monthly since CAF began researching trust in May 2016.

According to CAF’s 2017 annual UK Giving report, at an overall level, half of the population believed that most charities were trustworthy across the whole of 2016.

The most recent polling for mid-February, therefore, shows that trust is stable.

CAF will release its 2018 annual report on UK Giving later this month. It looks at individual giving across the UK during 2017 and provides insight into who gives to charity.

Sir John Low, chief executive of CAF, said: “People in the UK are incredibly generous and consistently give around £10 billion to charity per year.

“One of the reasons why we think levels of trust remain high is that people in Britain are really motivated to support causes they care about and that touch their lives in some way.

"That desire to help others underpins our record as one of the most generous countries on earth and is something we always need to protect.”