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The UK voluntary sector has nearly doubled in size during the past 10 years, according to a new study.

Big charities have done best in this period maintaining growth as they received most of the money provided by government contracts and grants. Small and medium sized organisations, defined as having income less than £1m a year, have seen their incomes decline.

The public and government provides more than 70 per cent of charities income with another 15 per cent coming from organisations themselves, less than 7 per cent from other charities and less than 5 per cent from the private sector.

In 1991 the sector consisted of 98,000 charities with £11.2bn total income, while in 2001 there were 153,000 charities with total income of about £20bn.

On average, charities spent 65 per cent of their income on activities associated with their charitable aims, 17 per cent in grants to other charities and about 15 per cent on fundraising, management and administration.

There are about 569,000 paid staff in the voluntary sector, but almost two-thirds were part-time. Paid staff worked mainly for large and medium sized charities while small ones relied on volunteers.

• The Size and scope of the UK Voluntary Sector: The NCVO’s UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2004 from the National Council of Voluntary Organisations www.ncvo-vol.org.uk