NSPCC vs Barnardo's — children's charity comparison
In short: NSPCC: Child protection and prevention of harm. Barnardo's: Specialist support for children and young people. Match the work to your purpose, then compare dated accounts and evidence.
Data from Charity Commission register, last updated .
This comparison brings together registered purposes, source-checked interpretation and the accounts held by CharityCompare. The organisations may use different reporting periods and definitions. Read the source notes before comparing totals or treating a financial score as an assessment of programme results.
Key differences
| What to compare | THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN | BARNARDO'S |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Child protection and prevention of harm. | Specialist support for children and young people. |
| What to consider | The registered purposes focus on protecting children. Service contacts, prevention activity and changes in children’s safety are different measures. Assess the relevant programme’s evidence rather than assuming a helpline volume measures prevented harm. | Its activities cover several groups, including young people in care and those facing exploitation or barriers to education. Results should identify the service, age group and follow-up period; charity-wide totals can conceal different programmes. |
| Access and practical checks | Use the organisation’s official contact routes for the type of concern. CharityCompare’s profile is a source of information about the organisation, not a safeguarding reporting service. | Find the specific service and check its referral process, age range and locality. A national registration does not guarantee local access to every programme. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. |
What the latest filings show
Figures from the accounts held in our dated dataset; the live register may contain newer filings. Ratios can span multiple years, as labelled. Clarity scores use our methodology.
| Metric | THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN | BARNARDO'S |
|---|---|---|
| Latest accounts year in our snapshot | 2025 | 2025 |
| Financial snapshot refreshed | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 |
| Ratio reporting window | 3-yr avg | 3-yr avg |
| Overall score | 86/100 (4★) | 73/100 (3★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 72% of expenditure | 70% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £4.3 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) | £3.4 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) |
| Latest income | £120m | £340m |
| Fundraising spend | 25% of expenditure | 30% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 10 months | 1 month |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 216401 | 216250 |
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN on the register · BARNARDO'S on the register
Considering NSPCC
- Child protection and prevention of harm.
- Use the organisation’s official contact routes for the type of concern. CharityCompare’s profile is a source of information about the organisation, not a safeguarding reporting service.
Considering Barnardo's
- Specialist support for children and young people.
- Find the specific service and check its referral process, age range and locality. A national registration does not guarantee local access to every programme.
Common questions
NSPCC or Barnardo's: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. Child protection and prevention of harm. Specialist support for children and young people. Check the programme that interests you, the accounts period and the evidence behind any result. A financial rating is not an impact assessment.
Can I compare the headline results directly?
Only if the definitions, population, geography and reporting periods match. Research expenditure, service contacts and lasting outcomes measure different things. The source notes explain any figures included here.
How we score charities +
The Clarity Score is a 100-point rating from UK regulator filings (Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR and CCNI). Four pillars — Accountability & Transparency (40), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10) — each scored on a continuous scale, not pass/fail cutoffs. A statutory inquiry sets the score to 0 automatically.
Accountability & Transparency
Scored from filings
40 points — filing history (15), trustee oversight (15, scaling up to a board of three or more), declared policies (10).
Financial Health
Scored from filings
30 points — reserves (15, full marks 3–24 months, tapering on both sides), income stability (10), liabilities to assets (5, scaling down as debt rises).
Financial Efficiency
Scored from filings
20 points — program expense ratio and fundraising cost, each on a graduated scale (not a single cutoff). Kept at 20% of the total: financial-ratio scoring alone is not a reliable effectiveness signal (see "why not just an overhead ratio?" below).
Community Support
Scored from filings
10 points — volunteer-to-staff ratio from Charity Commission workforce data, scaling continuously up to a 2:1 ratio.
Overall score
Sum of all pillar points. Display stars use the same bands as the labels: 90–100 → 5★ Exceptional; 75–89 → 4★ Good; 60–74 → 3★ Needs improvement; 1–59 → 2★ Poor; 0 → not rated.