Common questions about Royal Voluntary Service's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is Royal Voluntary Service a good charity? +
Royal Voluntary Service scores 95 out of 100 (5 stars — Exceptional) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 97% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are up to date. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.
Is Royal Voluntary Service a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists Royal Voluntary Service as a registered charity (charity number 1015988). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=1015988&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.
What is Royal Voluntary Service's charity number? +
Royal Voluntary Service's charity number is 1015988. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.
What is Royal Voluntary Service's charity rating? +
Royal Voluntary Service scores 95 out of 100 on CharityCompare (5 stars — Exceptional). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.
Does Royal Voluntary Service have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for Royal Voluntary Service. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (none flagged on this profile). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.
How much of my donation reaches Royal Voluntary Service? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 97% of Royal Voluntary Service's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.
What are Royal Voluntary Service's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 3% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 6% of expenditure (2023–2025, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at Royal Voluntary Service. Royal Voluntary Service's annual return for the year ending 28 March 2025 reports 15 employees paid more than £60,000, including 4 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £150,001–£200,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does Royal Voluntary Service receive? +
Royal Voluntary Service reported £41m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: stable.
Are Royal Voluntary Service's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: up to date (last filing 2025-12-17). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is Royal Voluntary Service based? +
Royal Voluntary Service's registered contact address is in Stoke-on-Trent (ST1 3JP). It tells the regulator it operates in England and Wales, Scotland, with a focus on older people.
How much is Royal Voluntary Service's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. Royal Voluntary Service's annual return for the year ending 28 March 2025 reports 15 employees paid more than £60,000, including 4 employees paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £150,001–£200,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.
Where does Royal Voluntary Service's money come from? +
Royal Voluntary Service reported £41m total income for the year ending 28 March 2025. The largest sources were charitable activities £34m (81%), donations and legacies £7m (17%), trading and fundraising events £540k (1%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £446k.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to Royal Voluntary Service? +
The register records Royal Voluntary Service as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.
Are Royal Voluntary Service's trustees paid? +
Royal Voluntary Service's annual return for the year ending 28 March 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
What was Royal Voluntary Service previously called? +
The register lists these previous names for Royal Voluntary Service: Womens Royal Voluntary Service; Wrvs.
When was Royal Voluntary Service registered as a charity? +
Royal Voluntary Service was entered on the register on 31 December 1992. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 02520413).
How does CharityCompare score Royal Voluntary Service? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in Royal Voluntary Service's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.
How often is this page updated? +
This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and Royal Voluntary Service's most recent accounts cover 2025. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.