A new website launched today by the Charity Commission is intended to make it easier for trustees to update information about their work online.

With a streamlined structure, the site is also intended to facilitate a simple method of sending accounts and filing annual returns.

And a Google-based search tool built into the structure is hoped to increase the ease with which people can access guidance.

"Members of the public will be able to check more easily than ever that an organisation claiming to be a charity really is," the Charity Commission states, adding that "with over 39 million hits on the website in the last year, these changes will have a big impact".

Andrew Hind, chief executive of the commission, welcomed the improvements to the site which he asserted would improve the exchanges between the body and individual charities, while providing "a valuable window on the work of the charitable sector" for the public.

The commission is currently proceeding with work identified in its report - Charity Working at the Heart of Society - which set out developments to be achieved between 2005 and 2008.