Some face-to-face fundraising charities have already incurred penalty points under the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association’s new fining system, within its first week of operation.
However, the self-regulatory body won’t yet disclose which charities or agencies have incurred points or which rules they broke, until it has devised a fair way of making the information public.
The new penalty system was introduced last Monday, and will see PFRA members incurring points for various breaches of the new rulebook. Breaches include standing within three metres of a shop doorway, failing to make solicitation statements, and leaving bags on public highways.
The first points were issued after a town-centre warden in Westminster reported a fundraiser breaking one of the rules, and further penalties were incurred as a result of the PFRA’s compliance officer making spot-checks.
Ian MacQuillin, the PFRA’s communications chief, said details of the penalties would be made public soon but not before a proper disclosure system is established.
“We are looking at the moment at how best to publish them and only then will we say how many points have been awarded or who they have gone to,” said MacQuillin. “A paper is going to the board with recommendations about the best way to publicise them.
“We can’t just have a league table because the charities who do more fundraising will get more points; it’s got to be related in some way to volume of activity or the level of checks or something like that.
“But we will make it transparent and informative.”
PFRA CEO: New rules will drive up standards
Sally de la Bedoyere, the PFRA’s new CEO, said she was sure the new rules would go a long way towards improving standards in face-to-face.
“It’s going to take time to bed in and people have to get used to it,” she said. “There are already various processes going on within private fundraising organisaitons and charities in terms of training and their own mystery shopping programmes, but we’ve increased the mystery shopping so the compliance side, we hope, will improve.
“Personally I think they are very good rules, they can’t work in isolation but they do give more specific explanations for street and general face-to-face fundraising. I think they will be a huge part of improving the standards.”
