DCH 116 St John Ambulance
St. John Ambulance
National Headquarters
27 St. John's Lane
London EC1M 4BU
Telephone 020 7324 4000
Fax 020 7324 4001
Website www.sja.org.uk
Call your local
contact on:
08700 10 49 50
Fax 08700 10 40 65
Francene Graham
Scrutiny Unit
Committee Office
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London
SW1P 3JA
Dear Francene
Please find attached a
memorandum detailing St John Ambulance's response
to the Draft Charities
Bill.
This response relates
specifically to Part 3 of the Draft Bill (Funding for
Charitable, Benevolent
or Philanthropic Organisations).
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely
ROGER HOLMES
Chief Executive
Please Support
St. John Ambulance
A Company limited by guarantee
. Registered
in England No. 3866129
Registered Office: St. Johns
Gate, Clerkenwell, London EC1M 4DA Registered Charity No. 1077265
DCH 116
Response by St. John Ambulance
to the
Draft Charities Bill
This response is made
to Part 3 of the Draft Charities Bill (Funding for Charitable,
Benevolent or Philanthropic Institutions).
St. John Ambulance (SJA)
is supportive of the need to increase public confidence in charities
and the charity sector via an up-to-date and effective regulatory
framework. However, we believe that more consultation is required
in order to ensure that certain elements of the Draft Charities
Bill are effective in meeting this aim.
Our specific concerns
about these proposed changes are as follows:
1.0 Statements indicating
benefits for charitable institutions and fund-raisers (Clause
35)
1.1 Under the proposed
new legislation, professional fundraisers will have to disclose
"the method by which the fund-raiser's remuneration in connection
with the appeal is to be determined and the notifiable amount
of that remuneration". Presumably, the intention of this
clause is to encourage greater transparency of fund-raising costs
to the public and SJA is supportive of this principle. However,
it is
not clear precisely what the disclosure should cover. We feel
it would be appropriate for a professional fund-raiser to disclose
their personal amount of remuneration but that it would not be
realistic to expect a fund-raiser to explain to a member of the
public how a PFO is remunerated. We believe that it should be
left to a charity's trustees to decide whether a particular form
of fundraising is cost-effective.
2.0 Regulation of public
charitable collections
The proposed changes mean
that charities collecting
in 'public places will need to have permission in the form of
a licence from a relevant local authority, as well as the Certificate
of Fitness from the Lead Authority. The definition of 'public
place' has been extended and now includes ".
. . a public area
within any station, airport or shopping precinct or any other
similar public area" (65 (5) (b) (ii)).
We have several
concerns about this proposal:
2.1 SJA will have to obtain
individual licences to carry out cash collections in supermarket
forecourts, railway station concourses etc, from each local authority
in which the collection sites are based. This increased administrative
burden will mean an increase in costs associated with collections,
and a consequent reduction in revenue;
2.2 There does not appear
to have been any consultation with the owners of these sites.
2.3 It appears that the
proposed changes aim to regulate fundraising by location (e.g.
'public places' versus 'house to house') rather than by the type
of fundraising. In practice, this would mean that cash collections
carried out by volunteers in the street are subject to the same
regulations as direct debit solicitation carried out in the street
by PEOs. We believe it is inappropriate for cash collections to
be regulated in the same way as direct debit solicitation.
2.4 It is proposed that
regulations covering public charitable collections be extended
to "business premises" (65 (2) (a) (ii)).
This will affect
visits made by PFOs to businesses to solicit donations from employees
under the Give As You Earn scheme. It is not appropriate to subject
such solicitations, which are carried out at the invitation of
the owner of a private business, to the same regulations as direct
debit solicitation on the street.
3.0 Certificates of
Fitness
3.1 Currently, SJA are
in possession of an Exemption Certificate issued by the Home Office,
which enables us to carry out house-to-house collections. Under
the proposed legislation, the Exemption certificates will be abandoned
and a new system of licensing will replace it. The costs associated
with this activity will increase and the net income will decrease.
3.2 Under the new scheme,
charities would be asked to obtain a certificate of fitness to
collect from the local authority in which their registered offices
are located. The majority of charities carrying out face-to-face
collections have registered offices in London; local authorities
in the capital will therefore face an influx of requests for certificates.
We believe that the Charity Commission should play a greater role
in regulating charity fund-raising and that this is the body that
should issue certificates of fitness to fundraise. We are concerned
that the new licensing scheme will present a capacity issue for
local authorities, who do not appear to have been widely consulted
by the Home Office about these proposed changes.
3.3 SJA's County offices
will be required to carry out additional administration with individual
local authorities in order to carry out house-to-house cash collections.
In practice, this means that the cost of collections will increase,
and our net revenue will decrease. The additional administrative
burden will be particularly acute in London, where one application
to the Metropolitan police will be replaced by numerous applications
to Local Authorities.
3.4 Section
5.11 of Chapter 2 (Draft Regulatory Impact Assessment) states
that Guidance Notes will set out 'those matters which should or
should not be taken into account when issues of capacity are concerned'.
These criteria are not, at present, intended to be statutory guidance.
There should be clear, statutory
guidance on capacity and public nuisance, to ensure consistency
of approach across the country.
3.6 The proposed legislation
does not set out any indication as to what the procedure should
be if more than one charity applied for a licence to collect in
the same area at the same time.
St John Ambulance
June 17th
,2004
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