The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) has branded the recommendations of a recent report into the third sector as “unworkable”.

Independent think tank Civitas recently released its study into the regulatory system for charities, coming out with a variety of recommendations.

The first of these was that “charities receiving less than 30 per cent of their income from the state should benefit from charitable status”. Second, they suggested that “those receiving between 30 per cent and 70 per cent should be called state-funded charities and would receive more modest benefits”.

Those charities who receive “over 70 per cent of their income from the state are already de facto state agencies and should be forced to choose either to reduce their dependency on statutory funding or lose their charitable status”, is the report’s final suggestion.

ACEVO says that, although the report does contain some salient research, it draws its conclusions using the weakest elements of the evidence it produces - thus coming out with a “simplistic, unworkable and inappropriate solution to many complex problems”.

Civitas suggestions would do nothing to consolidate the sectors independence - and would create a “complex and unnecessary administrative burden on charitable organisations”, ACEVO asserts.