News

PFRA to issue revised guidance on NCCZs

Fundraising | Gemma Ware | 7 Feb 2008

The Professional Fundraising Regulatory Association is to issue revised guidance on No Cold Calling Zones to warn its members to be wary of local authorities' interpretation of a new legal opinion from the Office of Fair Trading.

The OFT sought legal advice on whether local authorities were acting legally in establishing the zones, which have proved a headache for door-to-door fundraisers.

The advice found that as long as local authorities were using “proportionate means” of achieving their objectives to prevent and reduce crime, then they could take a “risk based approach” to implementing consumer protection schemes, such as No Cold Calling Zones (NCCZ).

However, while the OFT said there may be circumstances where the establishment of an NCCZ was an “appropriate response to doorstep crime”, a grey area still remains over whether they are legally enforceable.

Aldridge said the PFRA would “nuance [its] advice accordingly” to reflect that the responsibility now lay with local authorities to take a proportionate response, but that some may take a hard-line approach. It will consult with lawyers before publishing the guidance later this month.

However, Aldridge called the OFT’s legal advice “an utter red herring” and said the real question was whether the zones could be legally enforced. “We’re convinced that they’re not, they remain completely unenforceable,” he said.

Although no fundraisers have been arrested as a result of straying into an NCCZ, some local authorities have threatened they could be. Aldridge called it “an idle threat”.

He said the PFRA advised its members to respect an NCCZ if it had been set up properly and in conjunction with the OFT’s guidelines, which stipulate it should be targeted to an area of 100 households in the immediate area of a crime hotspot.

However, Aldridge said that if fundraisers came across a zone that had been inaccurately established, covering 200 households or greater it was “flying in the face of the guidelines” and could be “safely ignored”.

A spokesman from the OFT said it sought to encourage Trading Standards Services to strike a balance between protecting consumers and ensuring legitimate cold callers could operate.

“The cost to business through intervention by local authorities should be a factor taken into consideration before intervention. Essentially, the benefits to consumers arising from measures aimed at crime reduction should outweigh the costs to business of having restrictions imposed,” he said.

The spokesman said the government would not publish any new guidance for traders or fundraisers in light of its new legal advice. “Traders or fundraisers that have concerns about the legality of their actions or those of others should seek their own legal advice."

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