Public Administration CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) (CH 20)

Summary

1. The PFRA’s remit extends only to face-to-face fundraising. Therefore, this submission focuses on those aspects of the Charities Act 2006 that would have applied to public collections.

2. Self-regulation of fundraising has been successful and is effective. While there is always room for improvement, the key organisations involved (ourselves, the Fundraising Standards Board, and the Institute of Fundraising) are committed to working together to clarify and enhance the current scheme. These organisations will work with wider stakeholders (for example, the Local Government Association, the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers, and the Association of Town Centre Management) to achieve necessary improvements.

3. Substantial further work is needed to develop a complete and suitable public collections regime.

4. The PFRA recommends that the Public Affairs Select Committee encourage all local authorities who perceive problems with face-to-face fundraising in their area to work with the PFRA to regulate the activity.

1b. To what extent has the Charities Act 2006 achieved it’s intended effects of improving the regulation of charity fundraising, and reducing regulations on the sector, especially for smaller charities?

5. The sections of the Act that relate to public collections were never implemented, so in short, the Act has not significantly improved the regulation of public collections. Along with the Institute of Fundraising and the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB), we believe that substantial further work is needed to develop a complete and suitable public collections regime.

6. The uncertainty and inefficiency of the existing regulatory landscape has been well canvassed and documented, so we have not rehearsed these arguments here.

7. An appropriate and balanced unified licensing and regulatory regime would lead to significant improvements for both charities and local authorities, by establishing greater efficiency and clarity. The logic of the regime established in the Act would have allowed for local preferences to be accommodated within a national framework.

8. According to the logic of section 60 of the Charities Act 2006 legitimate collections should be facilitated unless they are likely to cause undue inconvenience. This logic provides for the duty of charities to ask for support on behalf of their beneficiaries to be balanced with the rights of members of the public not to be put under undue pressure to give.

9. With sufficient co-operation from the relevant bodies already involved in the self-regulation of public collections, the logic of the regime in the 2006 Act could potentially be built upon and implemented, without the costly Public Collection Certificates element. Membership and participation within the self-regulatory regime could replace the requirement to apply to the Charity Commission for a public collections certificate, and should be sufficient to demonstrate the bona fides of a fundraising organisation.

10. Despite the relevant sections of the 2006 Act not being introduced, the PFRA has been self-regulating face-to-face fundraising in a way that seeks to balance the duty of charities to ask for support on behalf of their beneficiaries with the rights of members of the public not to be put under undue pressure to give.

11. In 201112, PFRA members recruited approximately 240,000 new donors on UK high streets. Donors recruited this way give around £45 million a year to charities and good causes. While face-to-face fundraising on the street receives significant attention from mainstream and social media, it is subject to comparatively few formal complaints according to the Fundraising Standards Board’s annual complaints audit. Out of the 30,848 complaints recorded in the Fundraising Standards Board complaints audit for the same period, only 1,098 were registered about street face-to-face (only 3.6% of all complaints about fundraising).1 All of these complaints were resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant by the charities concerned, with none having to be escalated to the Fundraising Standards Board for adjudication. Unless prompted, people tend not to identify face-to-face fundraising as a major or widespread concern. For example, the Charity Awareness Monitor,2 which is conducted several times a year, has consistently found that when asked “which of the following activities undertaken by charities annoys or irritates you?” fewer than 20% of the public select street Direct Debit fundraising. This chimes with our own research, conducted by YouGov, which shows that 70% of the population see “regulating” face-to-face as a very minor priority for local authorities, or none of a council’s business at all. Surveys conducted for Heart of London,3 the Business Improvement District that covers some of the most frequently used fundraising sites in the UK, have also consistently shown that around 80% of visiting shoppers are “content with” or “indifferent about” the level of charity fundraising activity taking place there.

12. Many complaints made about face-to-face fundraisers are not about breaches of the Code of Practice or our own rules but simply about the presence or existence of fundraisers—some people just do not like to be asked to support charity. However, making an effective ask is how fundraising works—people don’t give if they’re not asked.

13. Talking to a fundraiser, who can answer questions in person, is welcomed by many people and allows them to make an informed decision to support a particular charity or cause. Charity collections should not be considered a “problem” from which the public requires “protection”. Charities need to fundraise and attract new donors in a variety of ways to provide individuals with a range of different opportunities to donate. Given the limited risk profile of face-to-face fundraising, we propose that a regime that allows for rigorous self-regulation, of the sort that the PFRA currently delivers, is a proportionate (and cost-free) response, and is able to develop and innovate according to identified needs. The agreements we enter into with local authorities define sustainable levels of fundraising activity that mitigate against undue inconvenience. We report diaries to our local authority partners according to the terms of these agreements. We have been able to develop new processes and practices (such as our penalties and sanctions regime4) to respond to trends and challenges identified, and will continue to do so. Being a part of this regime demonstrates the bona fides of those collections.

14. We now have 52 formal, signed, agreements to regulate street face-to-face fundraising with local authorities. Research by the LGA demonstrates that these agreements lead to improvements, and the vast majority of local authorities that have agreements with us are satisfied with them.5

15. Our model of self-regulation operates as follows:

We accredit our members to ensure they have adequate systems in place to enable them to comply with best practice, and undertake non-financial audits to confirm systems and processes (including observing training of fundraisers).

We police and promote the Institute of Fundraising’s Code of Practice, which is the benchmark for best practice standards. We have also developed Rule Books for both street and doorstep activity introducing a range of detailed operational rules (which complement the Code of Practice) that allow us to issue penalties and sanctions against any of our members who breach the rules and fail to meet agreed standards. These rules also provides the standards for our council co-regulatory partners, such as town centre wardens, to police best practice and work with us to rectify rule breaches.

We ensure that complaints are managed and resolved.

We negotiate agreements with local authorities (or town centre managers, business improvement districts, etc.), which define the terms and conditions for face-to-face fundraising to occur on the public highways in their areas (location, frequency, team-size, etc). We now have over 50 such agreements, with a further 19 in various stages of negotiation. These agreements allow for local preferences within a simple framework, guided by section 60 of the 2006 Act.

We work closely with local authority partners to monitor and enforce these agreements, the Institute of Fundraising’s Code of Practice, our own rules, and issue penalties and sanctions to members who breach agreed standards.

We allocate fundraising spaces fairly to all members, big and small, according to the conditions agreed with local authorities, managing diaries and reporting them to local authorities.

We run a programme of mystery shopping across the UK, which we have increased this year. Every month our professional mystery shoppers aim to assess 56 street fundraising teams. In addition, our own compliance staff undertake spot-checks of our members’ activities to monitor and raise professional standards.

16. All of our services are proportionate and targeted and have been developed to respond to specific needs that we have identified. We are able to quickly and effectively develop and implement new procedures (such as diaries and site management arrangements to minimise undue inconvenience to the public) where issues or concerns are identified. We deliver these services to local authorities at no cost to them.

17. The PFRA recommends the committee encourage local authorities to work in partnership with the PFRA to regulate face-to-face fundraising in their areas.

9. How successful is the self-regulation of fundraising through the Fundraising Standards Board?

18. Self-regulation of fundraising has been successful and is effective. As per our joint statement with the Institute of Fundraising and the FRSB, where there is a need for clarification and enhancement to the current scheme we will work together to resolve it.

19. The FRSB should be positioned as the single public facing regulatory body and point of contact for the public with regard to complaints relating to any kind of fundraising. This is complemented by the role of the Institute of Fundraising, which sets the standards and writes the rules and codes for all fundraising, against which the FRSB will adjudicate; and our specialist business-to-business role focused on distribution and enforcement of face-to-face fundraising.

The PFRA: who we are and what we do

20. The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) is the nationally recognised self-regulator for face-to-face fundraising activity—the solicitation of committed gifts—conducted in public spaces by charities and good causes anywhere in the UK. The PFRA seeks to promote responsible face-to-face fundraising practices by working in partnership with local authorities, town centre management, and business improvement districts. Without drawing on public funds, we provide and enforce bespoke and free-to-user, durable, local voluntary management solutions within the framework of the Institute of Fundraising’s national Code of Practice for face-to-face activity. Together with the Institute of Fundraising and the Fundraising Standards Board we form an effective and accountable, co-operative self-regulation regime.

21. The PFRA’s model of self-regulation is delivered free to local authorities, is proportionate to the level of risk involved in the activity, targeted, and effective.

22. Our work and effectiveness is recognized by the Institute of Licensing, National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers, Local Government Association, and the Association of Town Centre Management, all of whom occupy observer seats on our executive board. The PFRA has a seat on the board and was a founding member of the Fundraising Standards Board. We are a corporate affiliate of the Trading Standards Institute—committed to fair trading and consumer protection.

September 2012