The leader of the Salvation Army is under fire after his daughter was given donated Paul McCartney concert tickets that were supposed to be for the homeless.

The seven tickets, donated by good Samaritan Chris McDonald, were initially given to homeless people.

But four hours before the December 5 show, two of the ticket holders were unable to attend and returned them, Salvation Army Major Brendan Nottle says.

“At the last minute, two tickets were returned and (a manager) made the decision to give them to my daughter. It had absolutely had nothing to do with me,” he told 3AW on Thursday.

“The manager did the ring around of other homeless people and volunteer staff and wasn’t able to move them because it was so late.”

He said his daughter accepted the tickets under the premise that she would be attending to “look out for” the five homeless people at the concert.

The Salvation Army will reimburse the donor for all seven tickets, Mr Nottle said, adding that concert tickets were not an appropriate donation for homeless people.

“When you’re working with homeless people, to be blunt, do homeless people need tickets to Paul McCartney or do they need a roof over their head?”, he said.

“We are not Ticketmaster, we are not concert promoters, we don’t do that stuff and we get it wrong sometimes, you know.”

Mr Nottle added that the situation could have been handled better and the organisation will “absolutely learn from this”.

– AAP