Chelsea Building Society is launching a workplace giving scheme to encourage its 1,000 employees to give to charity through payroll.

The firm joined the Geared for Giving Campaign after receiving a letter from MP Anne Snelgrove urging UK employers to help charities raise extra money by making all donations tax effective.

The scheme will be rolled out under the slogan ‘Give a little, change a lot'and will allow staff to donate tax effectively to any charity directly from their salaries.

Sally Davies, corporate responsibility consultant at Chelsea Building Society, said "We really wanted to introduce workplace giving so that our staff had the option of taking up the benefit and in effect giving their favourite charity up to 40% more money".

This forms part of a larger CSR campaign from the firm, which in recent months has seen staff take part in more than 1,400 hours of volunteering, including work in a soup kitchen and a local primary school.