Around 5,200 charities are currently late filing accounts or annual returns with the Charity Commission, according to updated figures published on the Register of Charities this week.

Almost half of all charities have a financial year which ends on 31 March, and charities with incomes over £25,000 have ten months after that date to file financial information with the Charity Commission.

The Commission updated its register on Monday to reflect all those charities which had failed to file by that deadline, revealing that one in 12 of the 62,000 charities required to file documents, had failed to do so.

Charities which failed to file on time included 18 charities with an income over £10m, and 272 charities with an income over £1m.

The largest charity in default was Methodist Homes, which has an income of £180m, which has filed accounts but not its annual return.

Neville Brownlee, chief operating officer at the Charity Commission, said: “Filing annual information is a legal requirement and a key way for charities to remain accountable to their supporters and the public, and there is no excuse for charities to be late when they have ten months to prepare.

“We regularly remind charities throughout the year about their approaching deadlines, and have recently launched a tool which allows third parties to submit accounts, making the process easier for those involved.

“Almost half the sector has a filing deadline of 31 January. Failure to file on time is a criminal offence, and charities which do so risk enforcement action, removal, or  being put into our class inquiry into double defaulters if they do so repeatedly."