The three fundraising regulatory bodies – the Institute of Fundraising, PFRA and Fundraising Standards Board – have opened up a tender to review the way fundraising self-regulation works.

The Office for Civil Society has given the Institute a £20,000 grant to fund research into fundraising self-regulation, which the Institute is commissioning alongside the two other fundraising umbrella organisations.

Still presenting the current system - by which the Institute sets fundraising codes of practice, the FRSB adjudicates on breaches and the PFRA regulates face-to-face fundraising - as a success, the trio acknowledge there remains room for improvement. Following criticism by Lord Hodgson in his Charities Act review about confusion in fundraising self-regulation, the three organisations last year moved to coordinate more closely and publicly delineated their respective roles.

However, earlier this month the Public Administration Select Committee warned that the system of fundraising self-regulation should consider itself “on notice” suggesting more needed to be done to boost and protect public confidence in fundraising.

The review into self-regulation, which opened to tender today, will cover the governance structures of each of the three organisations, as well as more specific tasks such as looking into the FRSB's ability to act against non-members which break the codes of practice.

A statement released by the Institute, FRSB and PFRA said: “The review was sought by, and will be commissioned jointly by, IoF, PFRA and FRSB and will look to make recommendations to ensure IoF, FRSB and PFRA are fit for purpose and sustainable on an on-going basis. This is part of the work of IoF, FRSB and PFRA to work more closely for the benefit of the sector as a whole.”

The budget for the review is £18,500 and deadline for submissions is 5 July.