The UK's richest people have donated £2.4 billion to charity in the last 12 months.

Scottish philanthropists donated more than £100 million to good causes over the past year.

Top of the most generous Scots list were Sir Ian Wood and his family who donated £58.5m according to the latest edition of The Sunday Times Giving List.

It’s very important and sends a message to a generation: that when you make money you help others

The list discovered a record total of £2.4bn worth of donations from the UK’s richest people and was created from analysis of accounts lodged with the Charity Commission combined with the newspaper’s own research.

The Wood Family Trust is well known for its charitable work, investing in economic, community and enterprise initiatives in Sub Saharan Africa and the UK.

Fellow Scots on the list included transport tycoons Brian Souter and Ann Gloag, author JK Rowling and Euromillions lottery winners Colin and Chris Weir.

Souter and his sister Gloag gave away £15m of their fortune last year while the Harry Potter author donated £9.4m.

Rowling was closely followed on the list by Baron Laidlaw, who handed out £9m.

The Weirs, who launched their own charitable trust following their £161m windfall in 2011, spent £3.6m on good causes last year.

The same sum was donated by golfer Colin Montgomerie who established the Elizabeth Montgomerie Foundation in 2007 following the death of his mother to cancer.

The biggest UK donor on the list was The Sainsbury family, who donated £165.3m.

John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, partner of The Sunday Times in producing the Giving List said: “It’s very important and sends a message to a generation: that when you make money you help others.”