West Midlands- based charities ignore at their cost the dangers their organisations face, a report from accountants and business advisers PKF will warn.

Two thirds of charities facing risk from terrorism or political action are completely unprepared by having no plan in place to deal with such an incident, according to this year's charity survey from accountants PKF.

Due out on September 27, almost 300 UK charities were surveyed by PKF and the Charity Finance Directors' Group (CFDG).

Of these, 45 per cent had no plans in place to deal with fire, flood or major incident.

Howard Voisey, the charities specialist at PKF's Birmingham office, said: " Unfortunately, in the current political environment there is a heightened risk of events related to terrorism and political action.

" These can cause immense disruption to activities and operations, yet with advance planning the effects can be minimised. It is therefore worrying that initial results suggest so few charities appear to have considered the full range of risks and implemented plans to address these."

While contingency plans should be specific to each charity's circumstances, there are key elements that should always be considered when drawing them up.

Plans should take into account all the possible effects an event may have, enabling key risks to be identified, written procedures should be given out to all staff, plans should be tested to ensure that they are workable, and a regular review of all plans should be carried out to ensure they are up to date.

Worryingly, six per cent of those surveyed had no insurance cover at all for key risks such as fire, flood, major incidents, terrorism or political action.

Mr Voisey said: "Local charities are increasingly finding that insurance premium increases are outstripping inflation. Although insurance cover cannot directly address the effects of disruption to operations, it can guard against some of the financial impact.

"West Midlands-based charities should look at ways to reduce their premiums, for example, by contracting through umbrella bodies or entering into other specialist schemes.

"It is important that charity trustees, especially those with responsibility for public buildings or involved in activities likely to excite the interest of political activists, recognise all of the risks and take action to protect against those risks. The amount of time and resource that this can take should not be underestimated."