A major research project has been launched by Tourism South East to discover whether the new rules - allowing charities to accept donations from visitors in return for free admission and then claim back Gift Aid on the value of the donation - are having a financial or operational impact on those organisations. The changes to the Gift Aid system were introduced in April 2006.

“We aim to discover whether the sector as a whole, across the country, is better or worse off as a result of the new rules and what other impacts the changes have had on charitable attractions,” said Chris Melia, director of Tourism South East.

“The results will be shared with the attractions sector and we hope they will be useful both to operators as well as to policy makers. The research will help us understand the value as well as the costs of Gift Aid under the new rules and will provide ‘baseline’ data for the sector.”

The research is expected to be completed by the end of May, and findings will include details of specific case studies.