Trading Standards drops investigation into Fundraising Regulator

20 Feb 2017 News

The chief executive of the charity which launched a complaint against the Fundraising Regulator has said that Trading Standards has decided not to investigate the issue further, as it considers the regulator “effectively an arm of government”. 

Jeremy Newton, chief executive of Children and the Arts who made the original complaint to Trading Standards Tower Hamlets, told Civil Society News that the local authority had informed him that it wouldn’t be proceeding with an investigation as it considered the fundraising watchdog to be “effectively an arm of government”. 

Newton said that while Trading Standards Tower Hamlets had said it wouldn’t be moving forward with his organisation’s complaint, it told him that “they were exploring other avenues to take the complaint forward” for the charity. 

He also confirmed that he too is "exploring his options" with regards to pushing the complaint further to a different, relavent body. 

'We are an independent regulator'

The Fundraising Regulator however denied that it was in anyway an arm of government, and insisted instead it’s “an independent regulator and a company limited by guarantee without a share capital”. 

“Trading Standards Tower Hamlets will make their own decisions about what complaints they do or do not deal with and why,” said a spokesman. “We are not a ‘quasi government body’. We are an independent regulator and as a company limited by guarantee without a share capital”.

Trading Standards Tower Hamlets has yet to respond to a request from Civil Society News to comment on whether or not it will proceed with the investigation, given the Fundraising Regulator’s definition of itself as an independent company. 

Children and the Arts made the complaint to Trading Standards at the beginning of February, after receiving what its chief executive described as an “unsolicited invoice”, which Newton said implied that the organisation must pay the regulator’s levy. 

Newton said that the Fundraising Regulator was using “aggressive” practices to solicit donations from charities “under false pretences”. 

This was an accusation that the Fundraising Regulator strongly denied at the time. 

Complaints about the Fundraising Regulator can be ‘escalated’ through Lord Grade

The fundraising watchdog also said that any complaints about its activity should be first made to the regulator itself. The complaint can then be escalated by “writing to Lord Grade”. 

“Should a complainant be dissatisfied with the response they have received from the regulator [during an internal investigation], they can escalate it with the Fundraising Regulator by writing to Lord Grade.”

 

 

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