DCH 153 British Heart Foundation response
MEMORANDUM
| To:
| Joint Committee on the Draft Charities Bill
|
| Cc:
| Francene Graham, Scrutiny Unit, House of Commons
|
| From:
| Maura Gillespie, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, British Heart Foundation
|
| Date:
| June 21st 2004
|
| Subject:
| Response to Draft Charities Bill
|
I am writing to you with the British
Heart Foundation's response to the Draft Charities Bill.
1. General comments
1.1 In general, we welcome the bill's
proposals to modernise charity law and initiatives to increase
public trust and confidence in the sector.
1.2 We support the aims of the Coalition
for a Charities Act, believing that:
- the Charity Commission should be
able to ensure that charities continue to demonstrate public benefit
after registration,
- the Act should provide for the development
of new charitable purposes to allow for charity law to adapt over
time to reflect society,
- and, the Act should focus the new
Charity Commission on its primary purpose of ensuring that public
benefit is at the heart of charitable purposes, not, as currently
proposed, be given a remit to assess the social and economic impact
of charities.
2.1 Comments relating principally
to Section 66(c) which deals with the door to door collection
of goods
i) The Foundation welcomes the provision
that the collection of goods on a door to door basis should be
exempt from the requirement to obtain a certificate of fitness
or permit. The current regulations were not designed with this
type of collection in mind and are, in many respects, unworkable.
It has been accepted that this type of collection does not raise
issues of public confidence or capacity (see Appendix 1: excerpt
from research on Attitudes Towards types of Help[38]
which shows the popularity of donating unwanted goods as a way
of helping charities).
ii) Unfortunately the potential
benefits of this deregulation both to the Foundation and, we believe,
to almost all charities which operate charity shops are totally
eliminated by the requirements of Section 66(c)(b); that the details
of each collection must be notified to the local authority not
less than 14 days before the day on which the collection commences.
For reasons explained below this requirement would add hugely
to the charity's expenses in running its 450 shops, has the potential
to make it liable to fines running into millions of pounds and
would almost certainly make the operation of its shops effectively
impossible.
iii) Each of the Foundation's shops
undertakes about 2 (and in some cases more) small scale collections
each week, each covering only a few streets, but totalling some
45,000 collections each year. The sale of goods collected door
to door accounts for over 80% of the total shops' total
turnover. Less frequent but larger scale collections are impractical
because of lack of storage space in shops and because there are
too few staff to sort and price large volumes.
iv) Each shop turns over most of
its saleable stock each week and the size and number of future
collections cannot be planned in any detail as much as 14 days
in advance since the stock requirement cannot be known at that
time.
v) Even where a collection has been
planned (usually a day or two before it takes place) its date
may be subject to change because of the non availability of a
collector and/or vehicle or for other operational reason. In
addition the precise street or streets in which a collection
will take place cannot be notified with certainty (the Draft Bill
refers to the requirement to notify "locality"). This
is because a collector may have to change the collection plan
if he or she learns on checking with householders
that another charity has recently collected in that street.
vi) The Draft Bill quite rightly seeks
to deregulate the door to door collection of goods. In consequence
it does not give local authorities the power to specify where
or when such collections should take place and it has been demonstrated
that this would be both unworkable and unnecessary.
It can therefore be of no possible benefit to local authorities
to receive and record tens of thousands of notifications in respect
of an activity which is otherwise exempt from the provisions of
the Act.
vii) The proposed fine of £1000
for each failure to notify a collection is totally disproportionate.
The nature of the activity requires that only individual shop
managers can decide that a collection is necessary and make the
notification. All shop managers work under pressure and they
vary considerably in knowledge and experience. It is not inconceivable
that due purely to human error perhaps 10% of collections might
not be notified. A failure rate at this quite modest level could
cost the Foundation some £4.5m in fines equivalent to about
50% of the net revenue which it receives from its shops. A failure
rate of 20% would eliminate this revenue.
2.2 An alternative proposal
i) The Foundation's alternative
proposal, and that of the Association of Charity Shops, is that
charities should be required to notify annually each local authority
in whose area they intend to collect goods on a door to door basis.
This would give local authorities all the information which they
require and are able to use. There can be no benefit from more
frequent notification.
ii) The Foundation's proposal meets
a main objective of the bill to minimise bureaucracy and reduce
administrative costs. It would also enable local authorities
to identify easily organisations which had not notified a legitimate
intention to collect and to take appropriate action. It has been
accepted that fraudulent collections by commercial organisations,
which mislead the public into believing that their purpose is
charitable, are a significant problem.
iii) The British Heart Foundation fully
supports the submission of the Association of Charity Shops which
comments on the likely effects of the proposed regulations not
only on national charities such as the Foundation but also on
charities which operate shops locally or regionally.
2.3 Closing comments
We believe that section 66 (c) (b) is
unworkable and that the proposal would be catastrophic to the
charity's income from our charity shops. We hope the committee
will consider our proposal, which has been approved by a large
number of charities.
We would welcome the opportunity to
give evidence to the committee on this aspect of the Bill.
If you would like any further details
or to discuss any of the above, please contact:
Maura Gillespie
Head of Policy & Public Affairs
Tel: 020 7487 7158
E-mail: gillespiem@bhf.org.uk
|
Note to clerk of committee
If the members of the Committee would
find it beneficial to visit a charity shop we would be delighted
to facilitate a visit.
38 The Gallup Organisation - research conducted 2001 Back
| 
