The advice and guidance charity Citizens Advice has topped Third Sector’s first Charity Employer Index, a new report that ranks leading voluntary sector organisations on their workplace policies and benefits. 

The index was built using publicly available data gathered from the official websites of 50 charities that topped Third Sector’s 2023 Charity Brand Index.

The websites were scraped using an automated process, before the data was manually cleaned, validated and checked to highlight which pieces of key employment information can be easily accessed by supporters and prospective employees.

Individual categories were then weighted according to importance, with scores that ranged from “vital” to “nice-to-have”.

The subsequent data bank seeks to demonstrate how transparent these 50 well-known organisations are in advertising crucial workplace policies and attractive benefits packages, from an exhaustive equality, diversity and inclusion policy to trade union recognition and enhanced parental leave packages.

“The CEI was a fascinating tool to develop, and we hope the report will help leading organisations to identify key places where they might not be clearly showcasing the policies and benefits that could make them attractive to key talent,” said Emily Burt, editor of Third Sector. 

“In such a competitive recruitment landscape, particularly where charities can struggle to compete with their private sector counterparts on salary, being able to demonstrate that you are a progressive employer that is driving a positive culture for staff and offering benefits such as a clear flexible working policy could be crucial.” 

Citizens Advice scored full marks across the board of the index for the strength of its EDI policy, its flexible working offers, whistleblowing policies, approach to workforce reporting data and parental pay policies. 

The charity was also one of just eight organisations on the index to publicly recognise a trade union. 

The animal charities WWF-UK and Blue Cross and the children’s charity Barnardo’s were ranked in joint second place on the index, each scoring 73 of a possible 85 points. 

The Charity Employer Index is available for a one-time purchase or included in group subscriptions to Third Sector. To find out more, click here.