Charity chief executives are less trusted than lawyers, NHS managers and civil servants, a poll by Ipsos Mori has revealed.

Ipsos Mori’s Veracity Index 2015, which was released on Friday, shows that 47 per cent of people polled trust charity chief executives to tell the truth, while 43 per cent of those asked do not trust them to tell the truth. The remaining 10 per cent said they did not know.

The Index, which is based on a representative sample of 990 adults aged 15+ cross Great Britain, has included charity chief executives for the first time. This follows a year of media scrutiny on the sector, in particularly fundraising practices and charity chief executive pay.

Ipsos Mori conducted the interviews between 5 December 2015 and 4 January 2016.

Charity chief executives scored lower levels of trust than doctors (who topped the poll), hairdressers, the police, the ordinary man or woman in the street and pollsters. However, they scored above trade union officials, bankers, journalists, estate agents and government ministers and politicians generally.

Asheem Singh, director of public policy at Acevo, said: “Despite the public criticism faced by charities this year, trust in sector chief executives is holding up. We don’t take this for granted – but we should also take heart that the public who see the work we do on the ground each and every day continues to back us and our judgement over that of public sector managers, councillors, government ministers and politicians. We should move forward with confidence.”

Click on images below to see comparisons with other professions.