Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE 2004
MR ANDREW
WATT, MR
OWEN WATKINS,
COUNCILLOR IAN
GREEN AND
MS PIPPA
COOMBES
Q320 Chairman: And you think that
members of the public are effectively having the wool pulled over
their eyes because these are organisations which are purporting
to be charities but are in fact linked to criminal activities?
Ms Coombes: That is correct.
Q321 Chairman: You are saying that
these are organisations that make a huge sum of money, I think
you are saying here in the order of £70,000 a year which
can be gleaned from these sorts of activities?
Ms Coombes: That is correct. That
is purely an estimation from Leeds, and it is the same organisations
undertaking these collections.
Q322 Chairman: Who are these organisations?
Ms Coombes: Eastern Europeans.
Chairman: Do you want to say a bit more
about them?
Q323 Mr Foulkes: Individuals, are
they?
Ms Coombes: It is an organisation
which is run from central London, Middlesex as well.
Q324 Chairman: Can you name the organisations?
Ms Coombes: They change on a regular
basis.
Q325 Chairman: Give us a clue.
Ms Coombes: Starling Ltd was one
of the first ones; Gotham IT. They get registered business names.
They register themselves as limited companies by guarantee and
use that name to try and legitimise themselves as charities. Members
of the public are unaware from the fliers that are being put through
letterboxes that these are not registered charities. They assume
from the kite mark from Companies House that they are legitimate.
Q326 Chairman: Based on the evidence,
and indeed the prosecutions that you have undertaken in Leeds,
where obviously you have been extremely proactive in dealing with
these problems, you would estimate that this could be across the
country as a whole a multi-million pound fraud on members of the
public?
Ms Coombes: That is correct. I
do have the evidence.
Q327 Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Are
all your prosecutions successful?
Ms Coombes: A hundred per cent
success rate.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I commend you,
and on doing it all for £32,000.
Bob Russell: Lawyers are more expensive,
are they not?
Chairman: Very much more expensive.
Q328 Lord Campbell-Savours: Are you
suggesting that in many local authorities, because perhaps they
are not as vigorous about enforcement as you are, people are getting
away with it?
Ms Coombes: That is correct.
Q329 Lord Campbell-Savours: Can I
ask you about the certificate of fitness regime? On the basis
of what you have just said do you think that applying to a lead
authority for a certificate of fitness, who have other ways of
dealing with these matters, is going to work?
Ms Coombes: Yes. For example,
apart from the burden on the lead authorities, I believe that
these charities will slip through the net, especially with intelligence
from other local authorities.
Q330 Lord Campbell-Savours: You say
they will slip through the net?
Ms Coombes: I have had experience
of it previously.
Q331 Lord Campbell-Savours: And yet
you say that the certificate of fitness system will work?
Ms Coombes: I put forward initially
that it should be from the Charity Commission. The lead authority
idea I put through when I put through a response that I believed
it should be orchestrated through the Charity Commission or a
body that has prior experience of such organisations. I feel that
a lead authority that has had no dealings, especially down in
London, previously with charities will have the expertise to deal
with these people because they are very clever in their applications.
Q332 Lord Campbell-Savours: Are you
then saying that you do not accept that the lead authority might
well be a local authority? Local authorities might not be competent
to be lead authorities?
Ms Coombes: That is correct. It
is also a burden for the local authorities.
Councillor Green: Chairman, I
would agree. The most appropriate body to be the lead authority
would be the Charity Commission or another such body. If you think
of the burdens that could fall, say, on Islington, Camden and
the Corporation of London where a number of national charities
are based, to be the lead authority to assess those charities,
then a burden could fall upon those central London local authorities
disproportionately to other authorities. A national body like
the Charity Commission, which has a wealth of experience both
in terms of supporting charities and also regulation, would be
the most appropriate in my view.
Q333 Lord Campbell-Savours: Do you
think you should be allowed to charge charities for certificates
of fitness?
Councillor Green: Yes.
Q334 Lord Campbell-Savours: Is that
your view as well, Ms Coombes?
Ms Coombes: Yes indeed.
Q335 Mr Foulkes: The evidence that
Ms Coombes has given is very dramatic and we certainly need to
follow that up. I want to ask about genuine charities who seem
to assume that they have an absolute right to collect money in
any way or almost any way. Do you have any worry that what starts
as voluntary giving moves on to persuasion and even to extortion,
even by genuine charities, particularly in relation to street
collections and door-to-door collections? I am thinking also of
these people who go around now asking the public to sign up direct
debits in the street. Are we not just getting a bit over a line
there and moving away from voluntary giving towards extortion?
Ms Coombes: We have had occasions
with direct debit companies where regulations have been breached.
We have had occasions in the city centre with normal charitable
collections, ie, a collection container, that have breached regulations
set by Leeds, and also the house-to-house collection regulations.
I am not at liberty to express whether or not I feel that extortion
may be included in this type of collection. I personally have
not come across it.
Q336 Mr Foulkes: Is it not sometimes
even intimidating when you see three or four people, bulky men,
standing with large buckets in a station for members of the public
to get past them without feeling obliged? That is not voluntary
giving. That is getting towards—
Ms Coombes: We class it as importuning,
stopping somebody's normal right to the highway. Regulations set
under section 5 of the 1916 Act will not allow it and we do regulate
it. However, it is intimidating. We cannot at the moment regulate
railway stations, as you are aware, and supermarket forecourts.
This Act does not cover inside supermarkets but it certainly does
not help the public interest with charities and charitable giving
and some of the illegal street collections that I have come across
personally are exactly what you have stated already. You can have
five large men lined up together and they use intimidation and
fear to extort money out of people but they are purely using this
form of collection for their own gain.
Q337 Mr Foulkes: Have you suggested
that the Bill's powers should be extended to supermarket forecourts
and railway stations and other places like that?
Ms Coombes: I think we have already
got supermarket forecourts and station forecourts but I am looking
also for inside supermarkets because the people that cannot get
street collection permits at the moment predominantly go into
supermarkets and again I can provide you with evidence, if you
wish, of fraud committed by these persons.
Q338 Chairman: I think it would be
extremely helpful. Your written evidence is very helpful but if
you can provide further evidence that would be gratefully received.
Ms Coombes: Certainly.
Q339 Chairman: Andrew, do you have
anything to say on that?
Mr Watt: I am a bulky man myself
and I do my best not to intimidate people. What I would say about
the provisions within the Bill is that things like the numbers
of collectors allowed at any one time are issues that can be addressed
as we begin to achieve a greater understanding of what capacity
actually is, what criteria should be attached to capacity. All
of us in our submissions to you in the written evidence have focused
in one way or another on that and it is a very important element
that will have to be developed through the guidance. In the nature
of five bulky men conducting intimidatory and illegal collections,
the principle of universal notification set out in the Bill will
go a long way to addressing that kind of issue because it means
that any local authority licensing officer will instantly know
whether across a broad range of areas an activity should or should
not be taking place at a given moment. It is a major step forward.
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