The chair of Age UK Wolverhampton resigned after endorsing a political candidate in a promotional leaflet in the run-up to the general election, it has emerged. 

In its general election report, the Charity Commission said that on 4 June, its monitoring identified a news article that showed that Diane Vukmirovic, the then-chair of Age UK Wolverhampton, had appeared on an election leaflet endorsing a political candidate using her name and charity role. 

The leaflet, which was promoting Warinder Juss, the Labour candidate for Wolverhampton West, included a picture of Vukmirovic, her name and her role as chair of Age UK Wolverhampton.

It included a quote from Vukmirovic, in which she said: “The Conservatives have broken our NHS. Hospital waiting lists are at record highs and it’s increasingly difficult to get a GP or dentist appointment when you need one.

“Only Labour has a plan to get our NHS back on its feet. That’s why I’ll be supporting Warinder and voting Labour.”

The commission said it had contacted the charity “seeking assurances on how the matter was being handled and clarification on whether the chair was acting in a personal capacity”.

The regulator said the charity’s chief executive, Mark Guest, provided a response saying that the trustees had “not endorsed this action” and Vukmirovic had resigned. 

A cease and desist communication had been issued to the candidate to stop the leaflet’s circulation, the regulator was told.

The commission said that further correspondence was issued to Age UK Wolverhampton outlining its guidance on serious incident reports and asking it to keep the regulator updated in future.

Juss was elected as the MP for Wolverhampton West with a majority of almost 8,000. 

Age UK Wolverhampton has been contacted for comment.

The commission’s report, which praises charities for causing the regulator to open fewer cases during the pre-election period than in 2019, also outlines several other charity case studies from the pre-election period, including an incident involving the food poverty charity The Trussell Trust.

A satirical JustGiving page was set up on 11 June in response to a comment given in an interview by Conservative party leader Rishi Sunak about not having Sky TV growing up, the regulator said.

The page said any funds raised would be donated to The Trussell Trust and included the charity’s logo. 

On the 14 and 15 June, further lines were added to the page that referred to other Conservative and Reform UK politicians. The regulator said: “As the page retained the charity’s logo this therefore raised the level of risk to the charity’s reputation and independence.”

The charity told the regulator it had no affiliation with the page and its chief executive contacted the individual who set up the page, which was then taken down on 21 June.

A total of about £12,000 was raised by the fundraiser, which received more than 600 donations. The charity made the decision to keep the funds after reviewing the commission’s guidance on refusing donations and filed a serious incident report with the regulator.

The regulator said: “We were satisfied that the charity had provided appropriate assurances that its decision-making was within the range of reasonable decisions it could take, and therefore closed the case.”

It was the second unaffiliated fundraiser to raise money for the charity by playing on political issues – last year a mysterious website was set up under the name of Meghan Markle’s lifestyle brand, which directed users to a fundraising page for The Trussell Trust.

A spokesperson for the charity said: “While the donations were being made to The Trussell Trust, this fundraiser had no affiliation with our organisation. We monitored the situation carefully and were in direct contact with JustGiving throughout. 

“In line with our donations policy, which follows the Charity Commission’s latest guidance, our trustees judged that it would likely cause the mission of our charity more harm than benefit to return them.”

The case studies in the report also reveal that the commission has ruled that a social media post from last year by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that called Sunak and other former ministers “liars” – which caused the regulator to open a compliance case into the charity – was “inappropriate” in tone.

The charity apologised at the time and the commission said the RSPB had made a “serious mistake” when it opened a case into the incident. 

The regulator’s report today says: “We found that the tone and nature of RSPB’s post was inappropriate and had not been signed off at the appropriate level within the charity.”

It added that it received no concerns during this year’s pre-election period.